


The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy

by AXEe



Series: The General Danvers Guide to... [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy References, Language, Not Canon Compliant, Tongue-in-cheek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8726086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AXEe/pseuds/AXEe
Summary: Or the one where Alex is abducted by aliens, finds that Astra is still alive, and that they have to work together if they want to get back to Earth.  Remember Don't Panic and know where your towel is





	1. Thursdays, I Never Could Get the Hang of Them

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Banter is Banned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7240537) by [thequeernessofsupers (CharlemagneGryffis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlemagneGryffis/pseuds/thequeernessofsupers). 



> Hello, more lose-brained General Danvers ramblings, this time with the help of Douglas Adams. Inspired by Banter is Banned by CharlemagneGryffis

******

_“Don’t panic”_

That had been one of the first lessons J’onn had taught her _“whatever you do,”_ he said _“don’t panic”_ and Alex was trying her best to not do that, only trouble was, being grabbed by a bunch of aliens who looked like the Gorn from _Star Trek_ who burst in through her window without warning hadn’t exactly been covered in the ‘what to expect when you join the DEO’ handbook. Granted _a lot_ of things hadn’t been in that handbook, but _this_ took the cake. The big burly lizard holding her hissed at his (her?) companion, a command of some kind maybe? And then a blinding white light suddenly surrounded them, there was a roaring sound and the strangest sensation like she was… _dissolving_ before she found herself being promptly dropped like a sack of corn

She winched as she landed onto a hard metal surface. Struggling to upright, she tried to get her bearings but her whole body felt sluggish, her mind hazy, like she’d just been spun around in a washing machine, ‘wet noodle’ was a good way to describe how she felt right now, her stomach was churning and she fairly certain she might just puke all over this nice shiny metal floor. She winced as strong, scaled hands lifted her head up, painfully pulling on her hair, something cold and metallic was pressed to her skull, just behind her ear, there was a sudden sharp pain and her ears suddenly felt hot, like she had an ear infection in both ears, then there was a popping sensation and suddenly the strange hissing growls she kept hearing suddenly changed into words

_“Do you underssstand usss?”_ a scratchy voice suddenly hissed, the hand (claw?) holding her hair yanked back harder _“do you underssstand usss?”_ the voice repeated, Alex grunted and nodded _“gooood,”_ the voice hissed, the grip on her hair loosened _“placcce it withh the otherrrr”_ the voice ordered, more claw/hands grabbed her and unceremoniously threw her into a cell of some kind

Well, was this just _dandy_? She thought

Ignoring the little man with a sledgehammer inside her head, Alex slowly got to her feet and looked around the room, finding a narrow bunk set into the wall, some kind of sink/wash basin-like device and Astra lounging against the wall looking bored

Wait, what?

Alex did a double-take so fast she wondered if she broke something (if the crack in her neck was any indication), yep the not-so-dead General was standing there as large as…well…life. She stared at Astra, Astra stared back

“Agent Danvers” the other woman acknowledged calmly, as if they had just bumped into each other at Starbucks

_“Astra,”_ she breathed, a million thoughts ran through her head, shock, guilt, grief, hope, and she tried to verbalize them all at once “you’re…how…what the hell?!”

“It’s difficult to explain” Astra began

“Your dead” Alex stated almost accusatorily, Astra glanced down at her hands, turning them over as she examined them

“If I’m dead then what am I doing here?” she wondered sarcastically, Alex snorted as she looked around the cell, filing the ‘Astra-is-still-alive’ information for later review

“Right now,” she began, as she felt a vibration run through the floor “I think we have bigger problems”

******

“Will you _please_ stop that incessant pacing?!” Astra demanded after they’d been in there for an hour

“I’m _not_ ‘pacing’,” Alex growled “I’m looking for a way out, which would go a lot faster if you _helped_. Unless you _want_ to stay in a cell again?” to her credit Astra didn’t take the bait

“Don’t you think I already tried that after I woke up here?” she demanded “believe me, Agent Danvers, being trapped on a slaver ship is _not_ what I expected to see when I awoke in Rao’s light” Alex sighed and sat down on the bunk

“All right,” she began “tell me about our…’hosts’, do they have any weakness we can exploit?”

“Many, but none that are available to us here” Alex sighed

“This day just gets better and better,” she muttered “all right, _what_ are they?”

“They’re called ‘Vogons’,” Astra began “they’re…opportunists, they will engage in any type of activity so long as it profits them, either monetarily or politically, this particular ship I believe is controlled by slavers,” she explained “what puzzles me is why they took you” Alex nodded

“Yeah,” she began “they just burst into my apartment and just…beamed me up” Astra nodded, frowning

“Did they do anything before that?” she asked, Alex frowned as she thought back to her abduction, slowly turning each detail over in her mind

“Yeah,” she finally realized “they…scanned me, like they were looking for something in particular” Astra nodded

“Now that makes sense,” she said “after I awoke here they made mention of finding DNA traces on my clothing and seemed determined to seek it out”

“So they took me because they found my DNA on your clothes?” Alex asked

“It seems logical enough an explanation as any” Astra nodded

“How’d my DNA even get on you clothes in the first place?” Alex wondered

“You _did_ stab me with a sword, Agent,” Astra pointed out “such acts usually require close physical contact”

“Don’t remind me” Alex grumbled, she tried not to think about that, but seeing Astra in the flesh was making it extremely hard, she still had nightmares about that, about what _could have been_ if Astra had changed sides, how easily she could have—did—fall for Astra. She realized now as she stared at the other woman that she was possibly in love with Astra, she didn’t know how or why, but she knew that she was. Of course she reminded herself, just because Astra was alive didn’t mean she returned Alex’s feelings, if she even saw Alex as something other than ‘the enemy’. No, she did, she _had to_ , why else would she had gone to her when Kara had been under the grip of the black mercy?

“Alexandra” she jumped at Astra’s voice and god if her full name didn’t sound wonderful when Astra said it

“Sorry, what?” she asked

“Do you want to get out here?” Astra asked “get off this ship and return to Earth?” Alex chuckled

“It’d be nice” she muttered

“Then we shall have to work together,” Astra reminded her “do you trust me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Astra scowled, Alex sighed “no, you’re right,” she groaned “we’re going to have to work together as a team if we’re going to get out of here alive”

“Then we have an accord” Astra agreed

“On one condition” Alex insisted

“Only one?” Astra teased

“You’re coming with me back to Earth,” Alex explained “for Kara” Astra nodded

“I was…hoping you would say that” she said, she held out her hand which Alex took without hesitation. There was a distant thump and the cell door opened, three of the Vogons walked in. the one in the middle fixed it’s gaze on Astra

_“Assstra In-Zeeee,”_ it (he? She?) rasped out _“we arrrre honorrrred to have you hereee. Krypton will pay much for your returnnn”_

“Krypton is long dead,” Astra pointed out “there is no one left to pay your ransom”

_“Liesss,”_ the leader hissed _“they will pay”_

“No, they will not,” Astra insisted “even there was anyone left to pay you, they wouldn’t bother with me,” she smirked “haven’t you heard?” she mocked “I’ve been disgraced, condemned to life imprisonment in Fort Rozz, they wouldn’t bother asking for a prisoner back even if they could” the lead Vogon growled in clear annoyance

_“Then Daxxxam will pay!”_ it growled, Astra snorted

“I highly doubt it” the leader turned to the smallest member of the bunch and roughly grabbed him (?) by the shoulders, hoisting him off the ground and shaking him

_“You sssaid they would pay!!”_ he growled

“Now!” Astra lunged, grabbing a short, flashlight-like device from the belt of the other Vogon and aimed it at him, a bright bolt of blue-white light shot out, striking him in the chest and hurling him into wall. Astra pivoted, and before the other two could react, fired again, knocking them both to the floor where they twitched, clearly alive, but didn’t seem too interested in getting up at the moment “that won’t hold them for long,” Astra said “get their weapons” she ordered, Alex grabbed the two identical devices from the other two and quickly followed Astra out into the corridor

“Don’t suppose these things have a ‘kill’ setting?” she wondered, Astra shook her head as she worked at a control panel of some kind on the opposite wall

“No, as I said, they’re slavers,” she reminded Alex “a lethal weapon wouldn’t be of any use to them” Alex nodded in understanding

“Right, it’d be like a farmer killing a cow that didn’t want to be milked, bad business plan,” she positioned herself next to Astra and tried to make sense of the symbols that scrolled across the screen “what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to disable their internal sensors,” she nodded as a string of symbols (which looked like cartoon fruit pieces to Alex) scrolled by “all right, I’ve shut down the sensors from here to their auxiliary craft bay, keep alert, that’s five decks down, no doubt they will try to stop us,” she turned and nodded to her right “this way”


	2. This Isn't Panic, This Is Culture Shock!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things can only get better from here....right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, an update to The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy, up next, can Alex and Astra get off the ship without killing each other?

******

For the first five or so minutes of swiftly jogging down the corridor things were actually going OK, no more Vogons had appeared to try to stop them (or eat them, they did have very sharp-looking teeth), no alarms had gone off, no weapons fire suddenly started raining down them, the air didn’t turn off, neither did the gravity (or whatever was keeping them from floating around like balloons), and Alex was seriously thinking that they might, _just might_ , make it out of this alive.

Then the ground dropped away from under her feet

Gasping and pin wheeling her limbs, Alex saw that the corridor had simply opened into a long vertical tube, which she had just fallen into (or maybe Astra had pushed her, the other woman had been standing pretty close). But instead of just falling to land at the bottom with a splat, Alex suddenly realized that was she was kind of…floating down, like there was something guiding her, it was an elevator she suddenly realized, just without cables

Or a car

She looked up to see Astra gliding down next her, looking perfectly composed, of course

“The look on your face!” the Kryptonian laughed, and Alex had admit that Astra looked beautiful when she smiled, really smiled

“That wasn’t funny!” she snarled “you could’ve had told me that alien elevators didn’t have cars!”

“Of course they don’t,” Astra said with a scoff as she did a lazy somersault, looking so carefree for a moment that Alex temporarily forgave her, temporarily of course, because Astra had to go and kill her buzz by making a comment about how primitive humans were “do you know how primitive those things are?” Astra asked “using a simple counterweight pulley and a metal box to move from one level to another?” she shook her head in clear disbelief

“OK, now how do we get off this thing, Ms. Know-it-all?” Alex demanded, finally managing to straighten herself out so that she was ‘standing up’ next to Astra, Astra smiled and tapped her temple

“Telepathic interface” she said as they suddenly glided to a stop, floating still in midair. Cautiously putting out a foot Alex found that it felt like she was standing on a plane of glass, whatever was keeping her (and Astra) from falling to their deaths certainly _felt_ solid enough, but she wasn’t going to risk it and bolted for the open doorway in front of them, not caring how undignified she looked in front of Astra so long as she was on solid ground.

The inside of the shuttlebay (that’s what she was calling it and no one, not even Astra, could make her do otherwise) _did_ look like something out of _Star Trek_ , with rows of small, jet fighter-like ships arranged along either wall “we need to hurry,” Astra said, all business now, but as soon as she stepped out onto the deck an alarm went off, a loud, screeching sound that made Alex’s head pound “here!” she felt Astra grab her arm and drag her into a little closet type thing, which was good because (one) the alarm couldn’t be heard from in there, and (two) Vogons suddenly poured into the room and started shooting, and this time the weapons they were using didn’t appear to have a stun setting, if the large holes they burned into one wall was any indication

“Thanks” Alex panted as she leaned against the wall

“Don’t thank me yet,” Astra said “we’re just as good as dead here”

“Yeah,” Alex realized “they could just open the door and start shooting” Astra smirked

“They won’t have to,” she said “look behind you,” Alex turned, seeing a large door-type shape marked with more unreadable symbols, but it was the little window that caught attention, looking out through it she could inky blackness “you see,” Astra began “this is in fact an—”

“Please, don’t say ‘airlock’” Alex groaned

“…airlock” Astra finished, Alex groaned

“I said don’t say that!“ Astra ignored her just as an intercom or PA system crackled to life

“ _Assstra In-zeee,_ ” a Vogon rasped “ _sssurreenderrrr and we willl beee….lenient_ ”

“Do I _want_ to know what ‘lenient’ means?” Alex asked, Astra smirked

“They won’t sell us into slavery” she explained

“What would they do instead?” Alex wondered, not sure if she wanted to know the answer, Astra shrugged

“Eat us, most likely” she answered calmly

“Great,” Alex muttered “is there an ‘Option C’?” she wondered sarcastically as Astra opened a little locker type thing next to the door they had just come through, pulling out two canisters, she held out one to Alex

“Emergency life-support suits” she explained, Alex blinked and felt her jaw drop as she realized what Astra meant

“Oh hell no! Absolutely not!”

“You wanted a third option” Astra pointed out calmly

“Yeah! One that _didn’t_ involve being _sucked out into space!!!_ ”

“It’s your choice, Agent Danvers: being eaten or the void”

“No!”

“The void or being eaten”

“I’d rather be eaten!” 

“Really, Alexandra, obstinacy is all well and good, but there is a time and a place”

“ ** _HOW CAN YOU BE SO FUCKING LOGICAL ABOUT THIS?!!?!??!!?!?_** ” Alex finally screamed, the whole days events finally getting to her

“Do not panic!” Astra ordered

“Panic?!” Alex shrieked “I’m not panicking!!! I’m reacting to your idiotic plan!!!!!!” Astra sighed and suddenly turned and slammed her fist down on a large red, ominous-looking button. The lights changed to red and another alarm suddenly screamed out as a gust of wind blew into the airlock

“ _Caution: airlock opening_ ” a pleasant female voice called out, it was downright cheerful in fact

“ASTRA!!! YOU FUCKING---” anything else Alex wanted insult Astra with was silenced as they were both sucked out into the void…


	3. Mental Jujitsu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now they're out in the vacuum of space...so now what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DOUBLE UPDATE!!!!

******

Air! Alex needed air! Her chest felt tight, like something was pressing down on it but at the same time trying to burst out of her body. She struggled with ice-cold numb fingers with the little soda can-sized canister that Astra had shoved into her hands just before they both went tumbling out into the void. How did she open it? There had to be some way of opening it! The canister suddenly exploded into a spherical cloud of slivery dust that swiftly surrounded her, conforming to her body to form a futuristic space suit of some kind, and suddenly she could breathe again! She sucked in a deep gulp of metallic tasting but still wonderful air

“ _Emergency life-support activated,_ ” a computerized voice announced “ _you have one hour of oxygen remaining. Please get to an airlock or life pod immediately_ ” one hour, OK, she could do one hour of fucking floating in space!!!

“Astra?” she called out, her voice echoing inside the helmet “Astra, where are you?” no response, did Astra make it? Did her suit malfunction? She suddenly felt something collide with her, grunting she tried to get her bearings, suddenly finding Astra grinning at her from within an identical suit. Astra tapped the collar of her own suit and then Alex’s

“ _Are you all right?_ ” the general asked, Alex nodded

“Yeah,” she gasped out “why didn’t you answer me?!”

“ _Too far away, these suits only have a limited communication range of a few feet_ ,” Astra explained “ _you did well_ ” she praised

“Thanks!” Alex spat “I’ll be sure to put that on my resume whenever I get home!” for a moment neither woman spoke as they floated in the void, getting further and further away from the Vogon ship, which didn’t look as impressive as Alex thought it might, she’d been expecting something that looked like a Star Destroyer and instead it looked more like a rusty block of metal, the Vogons apparently didn’t have any sense of style when it came to designing their ships, they also apparently had no interest in bothering to rescue the two women “so, now what?” Alex finally asked

“ _We try to land_ ”

“Land? Land where?” Astra turned her and suddenly an entire planet filled her field of view. It wasn’t Earth, but it was still vibrant nonetheless “what planet is that?” she finally asked

“ _Daxam,_ ” Astra answered “ _sister planet of Krypton_ ” she explained

“Wait, so, we’re in Krypton’s solar system?” Alex asked, and she suddenly remembered how the Vogon leader had boasted that Daxam would pay Astra’s ransom

“ _Yes_ " Astra answered softly, Alex watched as a small cloud of green dust and rocks floated in front of her view, obscuring the beauty of the planet below, a cloud of dust with an all-too-familiar green glow

“Is that…?”

“ _Yes_ ”

“I’m sorry” and she meant it, whatever she thought of Astra, good or bad, no one deserved to lose their people, their _planet_ like that

“ _Thank you_ ” Astra’s voice breathed softly in her ear

“So,” Alex began “how do we get from _here_ to _there_?”

“ _Follow my instructions_ exactly” Astra answered

******

“ _You have thirty minutes of oxygen remaining. Please get to an airlock or life pod immediately_ ”

“Is there anyway I can turn that off, it’s starting to bug me” Alex asked about thirty minutes later, which was how long it took for Astra to explain not only how to operate the suit’s thrusters, but also for Alex to figure out how to _do_ anything with them besides spin in a circle

“ _Do you_ want _suffocate before we’ve even achieved reentry? _” Astra asked sarcastically__

“Yeah, yeah, yeah” in those thirty minutes of tumbling around like an out of control top Alex had learned that she was definitely in love with Astra, the other woman had been extremely patient while Alex fumbled with controls on her suit and once Alex finally got the hang of it, the praise in Astra’s voice made her heart clench painfully in her chest. She had it bad.

“ _Shall we, Agent Danvers?_ ” Astra’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts

“Right, yeah” she keyed the controls built into the gloves of the suit. The first command brought up a heads-up display showing two lines leading forwards like the yellow lines on a road, a clear path which she should take; in the center of those lines was a blue dot, which represented her

“ _Aft thrusters, five second bursts_ ,” Astra instructed “ _all right, good,_ ” she said once Alex was in position next to her, like a runner getting ready for the five hundred meter dash “ _full burn on my mark….three…two…one…mark!_ ” and then they were both rocketing forward, Alex remembered to the fire the side thrusters every ten seconds to keep from drifting off course. And for a few minutes Alex could forget that she was hundreds, if not thousands, of light-years from home, forget that the only thing keeping her from exploding/burning on reentry was a thin piece of copper-colored nanotechnology, and just enjoy the ride.

Then they hit the dust cloud

Thousands of tiny specks of dust, kryptonite Alex knew, started pelting them, she could hear the tinny ‘plinks’ of the grains hitting her suit, like raindrops of her window back home, but she kept going, kept the little blue dot inside the lines, she could do this. Then there was a distinct _crack!_ and her faceplate suddenly cracked, the HUD flickering and then vanishing

__“Status of internal environment!” she barked out to the suit’s onboard computer, just like Astra had shown her_ _

“ _Internal environment stable_ ” the suit reported

“ _What is it?_ ” Astra demanded

“My helmet’s cracked,” Alex reported “my suit’s fine, but I lost the HUD, I’m flying blind!”

“ _Keep calm, I’ve got you,_ ” came Astra’s calm voice, she maneuvered so she was flying directly in front of Alex “ _match my movements,_ ” she instructed, and so Alex did, when Astra turned left, Alex turned left, when Astra dipped down to avoid a particularly large rock, Alex dipped down “ _we’re entering the gravity well,_ ” Astra announced “ _keep alert, this is where most people die_ ”

“Thanks! That's just what I needed to hear!” Alex snapped as she suddenly felt her stomach lurch as they were captured by the planet’s gravity, and suddenly she had weight, a lot of it

“ _Entering planetary atmosphere_ ” the suit reported as the planet suddenly seemed to loom in front of them. There was a sudden jolt, and then all she could see was orange…


	4. Mostly Harmless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling out of orbit is never a good idea...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! Another update to The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy!!

******

“ _You have fifteen minutes of oxygen remaining. Please get to an airlock or life pod immediately_ ” Alex ignored the warning from the suit and kept firing the thrusters, trying to keep herself steady as the atmosphere ignited around her

“Astra? You still with me?” she called out, there was a crackle of static, but no response “Astra?” she called out again just as they cleared the outer atmosphere with a bang, rocketing through clear orange skies at hundreds of miles an hour, she looked to her right, seeing Astra still falling next to her “Astra?” she called out again, there was another crackle of static, then what sounded suspiciously like Astra laughing gleefully over the comm., and _of course_ Astra would be an adrenaline junkie, it just figured “are you… _enjoying_ this?!” Alex demanded

“ _Somewhat, yes_ ,” was the breathless answer “ _keep alert,_ ” Astra reminded her “ _remember to arrest your fall using the thrusters in the boots_ ”

“Copy that” she remembered how to orient herself so that her feet were pointing down, from then on all she had to do was make sure that she stayed in that position and let the suit do the rest

“ _Eighty-thousand feet_ ,” the suit reported “ _alert: you have ten minutes of oxygen remaining_ ”

“Astra!”

“ _I heard, just keep going, we’re almost there!_ ”

“ _Forty-thousand feet. Alert: you have only five minutes of oxygen remaining_ ”

“ _Crack the seal!_ ,” Astra barked out over the comm. “ _your helmet! Crack the seal_!”

“How?!”

“ _The collar! There should be a latch on the left-hand side, feel around for it!_ ” Alex scrabbled at the collar, feeling around for a latch, a knob, a _zipper_ , something! But the thick gloves were making it hard and she was already getting lightheaded from the lack of air

“ _Thirty-thousand feet. Alert, you have only three minutes of oxygen remaining_ ” come on, it had to be there! Wait! There! A small handle or something, she clawed at it

“I got it!” she cried, there was a hiss and fresh, slightly dusty, air suddenly rushed into the suit

“ _Alert, environment compromised, alert, environment compromised_ ” the suit squawked

“Shut up!” both women exclaimed simultaneously

“ _Twenty-thousand feet_ ,” the suit reported “ _arresting fall_ ” Alex tried not to throw up as the suit suddenly jerked as the thrusters in the boots suddenly fired and then she was slowing down, no longer plummeting like a brick but drifting down like a leaf

“Astra? You OK?” she called out

“ _I’ve been worse_ ” Astra replied as their suits came to a gentle stop on the ground, it felt less like landing with a parachute and more like stepping off an escalator, and Alex had to admit that it felt rather anticlimactic after the drama (and excitement) of literally falling from orbit

“ _You have arrived at your destination_ ” the suit announced almost cheerfully, great even aliens had annoying GPS voices, but Alex ignored it as she wrenched off her helmet and took a look around at her surroundings, shocked by what she saw. They had landed right in the middle of a city, a city equal in size and scale to New York City or London or any other modern metropolis on Earth if not greater, but this city was quiet, still, no one lived here anymore, not for a long while. Once tall buildings were now pockmarked with holes while others lay in broken heaps. Rusted, burnt out hulks of what might have once been cars or vehicles littered the streets, looking as if they had just been abandoned where they lay, while what were clearly once a system of paved roads were now covered in dust and debris

“What happened to this place?” Alex finally breathed

“I don’t know” Astra said as they cautiously stepped forward

“It looks like someone nuked this place” Alex muttered as she looked around

“No,” Astra said as she bent down to pick up something off the ground “but very close” she held up the object in her hand, a lump of glittering green stone still faintly glowing

“Kryptonite,” Alex realized, she looked skyward suddenly realizing what had happened here “when Krypton exploded, the debris must have struck the surface here” she remembered reading somewhere that the asteroid that had killed off the dinosaurs was probably a mile or more long, then she tried to imagine what would happen if hundreds, thousands, of similarly sized rocks hit an advanced, Earth-like planet. The end result would probably look like this she realized as she stared at the dead city around her

“Come on,” Astra’s voice broke her out of her thoughts “we need to find shelter,” she nodded up at the rapidly darkening skies “I don’t like the looks of those clouds”

******

“So, tell me about this place” Alex asked after they’d been walking through the city for an hour or so

“As I said before, Daxam is, or should I say, _was_ Krypton’s sister planet, similar environment capable of supporting life, the only difference being that Daxam was uninhabited”

“So, this was, what, a Kryptonian colony?” Alex asked

“In a sense, yes,” Astra answered, she nodded towards the doorway of a largely intact building “Daxam was settled by Kryptonian colonists at least one thousand years ago, but soon after relations between us and the ‘Daxamites’, as the colonists called themselves, broke down”

“How come?” Alex asked as they picked their way through what looked like some kind of bunker of some sort

“Krypton was a democratic republic led by philosophers, scientists, explorers, Daxam became a monarchy, ruled over by autocratic kings and queens who saw their subjects as nothing more than pawns to use against their rival claimants to the throne” Astra explained

“Sounds like a reverse of our own revolution” Alex muttered

“Yes, well, like your own American Revolution, Krypton and Daxam also went to war,” Astra explained, she paused and gestured for Alex to sit down as she herself leaned against a wall “millions died, and by the time the war ended close to two centuries later no one could remember why it started or who started it”

“And let me guess, both sides blamed the other,” Astra nodded “hey,” Alex nodded towards a large crate or box off to the side “am I reading that right, does that say ‘emergency supply kit’?”

“It does,” Astra confirmed, she frowned at Alex “you read Kryptonese?” she asked, surprised, Alex nodded

“Kara taught me a little when we were growing up,” she explained “I can’t have a philosophical debate or anything, but I could probably get by,” she stood up and examined the crate “I wonder what’s in here?”

“It could be anything,” Astra said “food, medicine, weapons”

“Well, we need all three” she reached for the crate

“Be careful!” Astra rushed to her feet and swatted Alex’s hand away “it could be rigged with pressure explosives,” she explained as she examined the crate “I’ve known many an unfortunate soldier who lost their curiosity permanently after encountering something like this,” she scowled “what I need is a scanner!” she snarled “without one I can’t tell if this is safe or not”

“I guess we’ll just have to risk it” Alex sighed, Astra sighed as well

“It would appear so,” she moved to one side of the crate, placing her hands on the lid, Alex copied her “on three, ready?”

“Ready”

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”


	5. Mostly Harmless, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will the crate blow in their faces?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man! I am on a roll with this fic!!!

** **

******

Alex cautiously opened one eye

“Are we dead?” she asked when nothing happened, Astra chuckled even as she sighed in obvious relief

“Yes. We are” she said with a chuckle while Alex slowly let out the breath she’d been holding

“Let’s see what’s in here” she said as they slowly lifted the lid

“Hmm,” Astra carefully rifled through the crate “we have medical supplies, emergency combat rations, and four plasma pistols,” she announced as she pulled out each item, she sighed as she up a silver package, one side was clear showing what looked like some kind of meat in a dark brown sauce while the other side had a label stamped with more Kryptonese-like symbols “I never thought that I would be _glad_ to see combat rations” Astra muttered

“Me neither,” Alex said as she turned one of the packages over in her hands “how do you…?” Astra looked up

“Oh, here,” she took the package from Alex turned it so that the label was facing her “press your finger to this symbol here,” she pressed on a hexagonal-shaped symbol at the top of the label “once it turns red twist both ends of the package in opposite directions until it turns yellow, then…,” there was a quiet hiss and the top part of the package opened, unsealing itself, the two halves peeling apart just enough for it to open but not enough for anything to spill out, steam and the smell of some kind of spiced meat suddenly whiffed out of the package, Astra held out the package to Alex “…eat” she finished

“What is it?” Alex asked as she took the package from Astra

“It’s _za’ya_ meat in sauce” Astra explained

“And, what exactly _is_ za’ya meat?” Alex wonder as she took a cautious sniff, the meat smelled surprisingly similar to spiced beef

“A za’ya was a type of animal on Krypton, I suppose the closest analogy you would have on Earth would be a pig or a cow”

“Livestock, basically” Alex reasoned

“Yes,” Astra frowned “what did you think it was?” she wondered, Alex shrugged

“I don’t know, I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t eating someone’s dog or something” Astra pulled a face, looking disgusted

“What do you think we are? Savages?” she demanded, she shook her head “just eat, the utensils are underneath the label” she explained, peeling back the label Alex found what looked suspiciously like a metal spork

“So, you had dogs on Krypton?” she asked as she cautiously poked at the meat

“Not exactly, but we did have pets,” Astra explained “our version of a ‘dog’ was more like a serpent, they had no legs but they did have fur and made a similar sound”

“That would be a furry barking snake then” Alex reasoned with a chuckle

“I suppose so,” Astra reasoned “are you going to actually eat that or just play with it?” Alex looked down and realized she had yet to take a bite of the food, screwing up her courage she stabbed a piece of the meat and pulled it out of the package

“It’s…purple” she said, taking note of the purple sauce covering the meat, Astra sighed and actually rolled her eyes

“Just eat it!” she ordered, sighing Alex quickly popped the piece of meat into her mouth…whoa! The texture of the meat was similar to beef, pot roast to be exact, while the flavor was a bit harder to describe, it reminded her of Indian cuisine, something that had been slow cooked for hours in a rich sauce of spices and herbs until it had permeated the meat

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as she swallowed “this is incredible!”

“I take it meets with your approval?” Astra drawled sarcastically, Alex ignored the sarcasm and kept eating

“If this is what the combat ration tastes like, I can only imagine what the real thing tastes like” she exclaimed, Astra chuckled

“The real thing is better of course,” she said as she took a bite of her own food (something in a yellow curry-like sauce) she stopped suddenly, frowning “ _was_ better, I should say” she amended softly, Alex froze, suddenly feeling like an ass

“Oh, geez, Astra, I…” the other woman shook her head

“It’s all right” she said

“No, it’s not,” Alex said “here I am, stuffing my face and going on and on about food without realizing that I just brought back bad memories, I’m sorry”

“Thank you,” Astra replied “and…not all them were bad memories”

“Tell me” Alex encouraged, Astra frowned

“What would you want to hear?” she asked

“Well, tell me about Kara’s childhood” Alex encouraged, Astra frowned as she picked at her food

“All right…” she said and soon she was telling Alex about all things that she and Kara used to do, the games they played, the stories that Astra had told her niece, many of them so tall and far-fetched that they couldn’t possibly have been based on real events (despite Astra’s insistence that they were), then she had moved on to stories of her own childhood, of growing up as one half of a set of identical twins in a society that thought it had finally abolished all genetic ‘defects’ (like twins), most of the stories were funny or silly and Alex knew that Astra was avoiding the more tragic stories, and before Alex knew it two hours had passed, both women had quickly gotten out of the space suits they’d been wearing and were now sitting around some kind of lantern-like device from the inside the crate

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Alex said “are you telling me that you were _in the room_ with Alura and Zor-El when Kara was conceived?!”

“Yes”

“So, so, so, you were with them when they were…” she trailed off, not quite sure if she wanted to finish that sentence

“Yes,” Astra answered calmly “on Krypton, despite the fact that most new individuals were conceived via the Codex and artificial wombs, sex was never seen as ‘dirty’ or shameful,” she explained “to us it was a natural part of life, something beautiful and sacred, therefore why shouldn’t you have family with you to bless the act?”

“You’re joking”

“I can assure you, that I am quite serious,” Astra said “you must remember, I am not human, my values and beliefs are different from your own” she pointed out, Alex nodded

“I guess I forget that sometimes, because Kara’s assimilated so…easily” she explained

“Kara was a child when she arrived on Earth,” Astra pointed out “it’s much easier for children to assimilate to a new culture and society than adults” Alex nodded

“So, if I was on Krypton,” she began “and I walked in on Kara and her partner it wouldn’t be seen as offensive?” Astra shook her head

“Not in the least,” she said “in fact, I, as you said, ‘walked in’ on Alura and Zor-El quite often” she explained “apparently my sister was quite…amorous”

“And what happened when you did walk in?” Alex wondered, steadfastly ignoring the whole ‘Alura-was-apparently-a-sex-maniac’ thing

“It depended,” Astra answered with a shrug “sometimes I would simply leave, other times, if I needed to discus something with her I would”

“While she was still having sex with her husband?” Alex asked

“Yes”

“Please tell me that Kara didn’t see that” Astra scowled

“Of course not!” she spat, looking disgusted “we had the same social taboos as your kind about exposing children to sexuality”

“Sorry,” Alex mumbled, she frowned “wasn’t it kind of…weird though?” she wondered “I mean she was your identical twin, so wasn’t it kind of like….watching yourself have sex?”

“No, Alura and I were different people,” Astra explained, she glanced towards the sloping corridor they had come in through “it’s late,” she announced “we should get some sleep”

“Hmm, you’re probably right,” Alex agreed “it’s cold too”

“Yes, it must be wintertime here,” Astra muttered as she rooted around in the crate, finally emerging holding what looked like a knife. She grabbed her space suit and cut down the length of its back, opening it up like butterflying a chicken “here,” she handed the knife to Alex “we’ll need blankets of some sort” she explained as Alex took the knife

“How do you know that I won’t use this on you?” Alex asked as she copied Astra and cut her space suit open

“Because, first and foremost, you need me in order to survive on an alien world,” Astra pointed out “secondly, you’ve already killed me once before” Alex stopped mid cut

“Are we going to talk about that?” she asked softly

“What is there to talk about?” Astra wondered “you killed me to save your commanding officer, an admirable effort, I hold no ill will towards you for that,” she explained “I was the enemy and we were at war, in war lives are lost” Alex put down the knife

“How did you…survive?” she asked

“I don’t know,” Astra admitted “I have vague memories of this bright, almost blinding light, and then waking on the Vogon ship and hearing them mention about how they found me orbiting the sun, so presumably, my funerary pod was pulled into Earth’s sun where the solar radiation healed me,” she glanced over Alex “sleep,” she instructed “I’ll take the first watch. We’ll talk more in the morning if you wish” she explained, still frowning, Alex wrapped the space suit around herself like a sleeping bag and laid down. In moments, sleep overcame her.


	6. Not Entirely Unlike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's an update to The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy (yay!!) I hope everybody enjoyed the last chapter and that they enjoyed the updates to Strange Visitor. I am currently trying to update Part Six of What we are, What we are (is a bunch of one-shots), Family Matters, and Welcome to Krypton (takes a breath, whew!) but for now, here's some more of General Danvers as space adventurers.
> 
> UP! UP! AND AWAY!!!

******

Astra frowned as she watched Alex sleep, ever since she’d first seen the Human, something about her had fascinated Astra. Alex was…wild, nothing could make her submit, could break her. Quietly sighing, Astra turned away from watching the entrance to their hideout and studied Alex.

She was also beautiful, intelligent, and brave. All qualities that Astra found attractive in a potential mate, no matter the species or gender, if things had been different…. Scowling, Astra bit back a bitter laugh, careful not to wake the sleeping Human

“Hello, sister” Astra glanced up at the voice, scowling

“I was wondering when you would finally deign to appear” she muttered, the apparition that now crouched in front of her, which looked like her dead sister, smirked

“What is it the humans say, ‘a penny for your thoughts?” Alura Zor-El asked, Astra snorted

“Why bother asking for my thoughts?” she wondered “you’re nothing more than a hallucination, therefore you already know my thoughts”

“True, but perhaps, I am not ‘nothing more than a hallucination’,” Alura pointed out “perhaps I truly am the ghost of your sister, or perhaps I am alive and it is you who are dead”

“Oh, spare me the philosophy,” Astra spat “you are an hallucination, nothing more”

“Then why are you still talking to me?” Alura challenged

“Because I miss you,” Astra whispered “that’s why I… _created_ you, out of loneliness and desperation to escape the horrors of Fort Rozz” she explained, Alura smiled

“If that is true then why did I continue to appear to you after Fort Rozz crashed on Earth?” she wondered, Astra shrugged

“Guilt?” she wondered idly “insanity? Some remnant of a conscience, perhaps?”

“So, if I am a manifestation of your conscience, then does that make you the wooden puppet who wants to be a ‘real boy’?” Alura wondered, Astra scowled

“I’ve no time for jokes,” she said “so either offer some of your meaningless advice, as you always do whenever you appear, or _go away_!” she ordered, the apparition vanished, Astra sighed with relief

“She’s quite pretty, I can see why you’re attracted to her” Astra turned, seeing that the ghost/apparition/hallucination/what have you was now leaning over Alex’s sleeping form. Astra surged to her feet

“Get away from her!” she snarled, the ghost merely raised an eyebrow

“Why? What harm can I do? I’m not really ‘here’, now am I?” to emphasis this point, the ghost waved a hand _through_ Alex’s head “see?”

“Just…go away…please!” Astra pleaded, the ghost stood up and walked to her

“You’ve changed,” she said “but for the better”

“Astra?” Astra looked over, seeing Alex lift her head and blink sleepily at her “everything OK?” she asked, Astra looked back, finding the ghost gone

“Everything is fine,” she answered “I was just talking to myself”

******

Alex sat up with groan, sleeping on the hard ground with only a cut open spacesuit as your bedding was _not_ in anyway _fun_ (she was suddenly having flashbacks to all the camping trips that Jeremiah used to take her on when she was little, as much as she enjoyed the father-daughter time, she didn’t enjoy roughing it), she was now one gigantic _bruise_.

“Sleep well?” Alex scowled at Astra, who was sitting up against the wall, studying some kind of data pad

“No” she spat

“Hmm, pity, you looked quite comfortable whilst you were snoring and expectorating all over yourself” Astra shot back, Alex didn’t bother dignifying that with a response

“What is that?” she asked instead, nodding towards the device in Astra’s hands

“Ah, I found this a few hours ago,” she explained “this building apparently used to be a military base of some kind, I’m hoping that I can find information pertaining to other settlements, presumably at least some people survived the cataclysm”

“Makes sense,” Alex agreed as she slowly, and painfully, sat up “so, what, ow, have you found out so far?”

“Unfortunately nothing useful at the moment,” Astra replied “mostly requests for new supplies, budget allocations, the commander of this facility apparently spent an exuberant amount of money ordering fresh fish every month”

“Sounds about right” Alex muttered

“Ah,” Astra’s fingers suddenly began to fly over the surface of the pad “here’s something of interest, apparently, according to this anyway, when Krypton exploded debris fell here on Daxam”

“We already figured that out” Alex pointed out, Astra nodded

“Yes, but apparently, power to large portions of the planetary shield failed, leaving the planet largely unprotected” 

“OK, so I’m guessing a ‘planetary shield’ is something that protects a planet from asteroid impacts?” Alex asked as she tore into another package of za’ya meat in sauce, damn this stuff was good!

“Among other things,” Astra agreed “don’t talk with your mouth full” she added

“Yes, _mom_ ” Alex rolled her eye as Astra tapped out some commands into the pad

“Now, according to this,” she began, ignoring Alex’s snarky comments “while the planetary shield failed in most other parts of the planet, it remained perfectly intact over the Royal Palace, it strengthened even” Alex slowly stopped eating

“I’ll be damned,” she swore “they saved themselves, the king, queen, whoever, did it on purpose, sacrificing the lives of their people to save themselves” Astra nodded

“The commander of this base reached the same conclusion” she explained, Alex frowned

“As much as I already despite some royal I never met,” she began “I’m still confused, what does this have to do with us?”

“The Royal Palace on Daxam was designed much like buildings on Krypton had been designed for the past thousand years,” Astra explained “it was a self-contained environment, in essence every building on Krypton was a city onto itself, having its own power source, food suppliers, _and_ a spaceport” Alex sat up straighter, suddenly seeing a light at the end of the tunnel

“How far away is it?” she asked, Astra grinned

“Not far at all,” she said “a few hours walk at most”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

******

It took about an hour or so to get ready, both women had cannibalized their spacesuits, salvaging what they could and discarding the rest. The suits gauntlets were kept because they had built in environment scanners that while not able to tell whether a crate of supplies was rigged to explode, they could tell the wearer whether or not the air was safe to breathe, the main body and helmets were also kept to be used as makeshift backpacks into which the food rations and medical supplies were dumped

“OK,” Alex sighed as she slung her pack over her back “I think that’s everything”

“Not everything,” Astra held out one of the plasma pistols “we need weapons,” she explained “each of us carries two, one on our person, the other in the rucksack, understood?” Alex nodded, but frowned as she took one of the weapons. It was pistol-shaped but there the similarities to any gun she’d ever handled ended, it was made of some kind of smooth, glossy black-blue plastic-like substance and was very lightweight, so light in fact that Alex felt like she was going to break it if she gripped it too tightly, and the whole thing looked like it had been made from one piece, it looked almost as if it had been stamped out of a mold, there were no moving parts that she could see, not even a trigger, the only thing that stood out, was a small area where the ejector port on a handgun would be which was filled with what looked like olive oil, presumably ammunition “how do you shoot this thing?” she finally asked, Astra smirked and took the weapon from her

“Your standard plasma pistol uses a substance called ‘charka oil’ as ammunition,” she began, she pointed to the olive oil-filled area “models such as this have about ten or twelve shots, depending on the power level, and are very simple to use, more advanced models have built in targeting scanners, and even sophisticated telepathic interfaces, but these only have a basic telepathic interface and a geneprint scanner”

“And what exactly is a ‘geneprint scanner’?” Alex asked

“In essence the weapon can be programmed so that only one person can operate it, by reading the genetic code it its user,” Astra explained, she held out the weapon to Alex “now, to operate the weapon is similar to your own weapons on Earth, the key difference being, that, since this is an energy-based weapon, there’s no recoil, _but_ , be careful, these have a tendency to pull to either the left or the right,” she pointed to a part of the wall “go ahead”

“What? Now?” Alex asked

“Would you rather learn how to use it _in combat?_ ” grumbling Alex shifted into a firing stance and took aim at the wall

“There’s no trigger” she pointed out

“Telepathic interface,” Astra explained “just think ‘fire’” 

“OK” the pistol suddenly burst into life, discharging three golf ball-sized bolts of bright yellow energy which hit the wall with a sizzle, leaving three large holes in the wall “whoa! Damn!” Alex dropped the thing and backed away, noticing that as soon as it left her hand it stopped firing

“Are you all right?” Astra asked, Alex to a breath and shakily nodded

“Just wasn’t expecting that,” she said, she bent down and cautiously picked up the gun “it barks” she noted

“It what?” Astra asked

“It barks, the sound it makes when it fires, it barks, like a dog” Alex explained, Astra shrugged

“I never really noticed,” she commented, she took the weapon from Alex and spoke into it “engage safety,” she instructed, the pistol chirped in response as she handed it back to Alex “tell it to enable functions only for this user” she instructed

“OK, uh, enable functions only for this user,” there was another chirp “OK, what does that mean?”

“The weapon is now encoded to your genetic code, meaning that only you can fire it,” Astra explained, she slung her own rucksack over her back “come on, we’d better go, it’ll be dark soon, and I’d rather not be caught out in the dark in a dead city”

“Agreed” Alex grumbled, she tucked the pistol into her waist band, pulled her shirt down over it, threw the other pistol into the rucksack and then followed Astra out into the darkening cityscape

Off to god only knew where...


	7. Thanks For All The Fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! Another update for The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy! hope you folks like this one, up next, more snark! More romance! More General Danvers!!!

******

“OK, I can’t see a foot in front of me!” Alex exclaimed as she tripped over a rock (at least she _hoped_ that it was a rock anyway and not something unpleasant, like a skull) for the umpteenth time. They’d left the city’s limits (such as they were) about fifteen minutes ago and were now trying to find their way around in the dark, which had descended on them almost the second they’d left the city, like sun had waited until they were out in the open to set. There was just the faintest glimmer of sunlight left on the horizon, but even that was fading fast, and there were no stars in the sky that Alex could see, probably covered by the dark, heavy clouds she’d seen as they left the city

“We’ll have to camp here for the night” Astra announced

“What, out in the open?!” Alex demanded, she felt rather than saw Astra grab her arm and pull her to the side a bit

“No. _Here_ ,” the Kryptonian said, squinting, Alex could _just_ make out the outline of a cave opening, she grunted when Astra suddenly pulled her arm again, stopping her from moving further into the cave “wait,” she heard what sounded like Astra sniffing, then the hum a plasma pistol being activated “stay here,” Astra ordered quietly, tensing Alex held perfectly still as she heard Astra’s footsteps disappear into the darkness. Holding her breath, she waited; not daring to speak or make a sound, suddenly there was a distant shuffling sound, a growl, and then the bark of the plasma pistol “clear!” Astra called out, Alex took a breath “break out the lantern” Astra called out, fumbling Alex managed to locate and turn on the lantern-like device they’d brought with them, it was apparently a high-tech version of a campfire, generating both light and heat. With the device turned on, Alex could now see that she was standing at the entrance to a large, rounded, dome-like cavern, the floor from the entrance gently slopped down into a wide flat area about a third of the size of the control room back at the DEO before continuing off into another tunnel

“Are you all right?” Alex called out as she set the lantern down in the relative center of the room, she heard a grunt and then Astra’s voice called back, sounding a bit strained

“I’m fine, I merely, oof, ‘evicted’ the former occupant” she suddenly emerged from the tunnel dragging what Alex could only describe as a ‘tiger-lizard’, the creature was about the size and general shape of a tiger (complete with stripes) but had rough, scaly yellow-green skin and a jaw filled sharp pointy teeth, squinting in the dim orange glow of the lantern Alex could just make out the wound made by the plasma pistol’s shot, damn, she thought, Astra had gotten it right between the eyes

“What the hell is that?” Alex demanded as Astra brought her kill to where Alex was now sitting

“Dinner” was the Kryptonian’s answer as she drew a knife from the small of her back and began to skillfully cut the beast open

******

A few minutes later a hunk of leg was roasting over the heat from the lantern (which apparently was designed to produce enough heat to safely cook food over), there was a series of sweet-smelling bamboo-like plants growing just outside the cave’s entrance, Astra had cut several stalks of varying thickness and length and in a few minutes had built a surprisingly sturdy and efficient spit with which to roast the meat

“So, did you do a lot of animal butchery on Krypton?” Alex asked as she tore into another leg, it was surprisingly good, a bit bland, but quite good, but what had really surprised her was how skillfully Astra had butchered the meat, she’d not only removed the innards, but had also cut distinct cuts with a skill that a professional butcher on Earth would probably have trouble doing

“I was raised in an agricultural community,” Astra explained as she poked the current piece of roasting meat “what you might call a ‘farm’ or a ‘ranch’” she continued

“Really?” Alex echoed

“You sound surprised” Astra noted, Alex shrugged

“I guess I am a little” she admitted

“Krypton was a very advanced planet,” Astra began “but we never forgot our ‘roots’ as it were, as such farmers and ranchers still existed even at that point in time, despite the fact that we were capable of traveling to the stars”

“So is that where you learned how to…?” Alex nodded the roasting leg of whatever, Astra nodded

“We grew our own food, raised and slaughtered our own livestock,” she explained “it was by no means a ‘simple’ life, but it was…fulfilling in its own way”

“So, how did a pair of farm girls end up becoming a judge and a general?” Alex wondered, Astra chuckled

“On Krypton there was very little class distinction, unlike on Earth, to us a farmer was not seen in anyway as ‘lesser’ than say a senator,” she explained “Alura and I attracted stigma and scorn more because we were twins rather than, as you say, ‘a pair of farm girls’”

“Sorry,” Alex apologized “just, back on Earth, most farmers a kind of looked down on, like they’re…old fashioned” Astra nodded

“I know,” she said “even so,” she began “my parents were still enormously proud of us both when we achieved such high ranks”

“I’ll bet” Alex remarked, and she could see it clearly in her head, two dark haired girls playing hide-and-seek in a field, laughing and playing with an innocence that only childhood could hold

“Something amusing?” Alex blinked

“What?” she asked

“You’re smiling” Astra noted, Alex felt her face heat up, now was not the time to fantasize about the alien general

“Oh, I was just wondering about this place,” she lied, she gestured the cavern around them “I mean someplace like this doesn’t really occur in nature” she could tell by the smirk on Astra’s face that the general didn’t believe her for a second, but Astra didn’t call her out on it and instead looked around the cavern herself

“This was probably a mine of some sort,” she said “you see the wall there?” she pointed to a spot on the wall that looked like it had been burned “that’s the mark of a plasma cutter, someone used it to cut something out of the wall at some point” she explained

“What would they be mining?” Alex wondered, grateful for the distraction and honestly curious, Astra shrugged

“It could be anything really, precious stones, valuable metals,” she frowned and looked around on the ground, reaching down and picking up a small, shiny pebble “here,” she held it out to Alex “it’s leaverite” she explained

“And what’s that?”

“Something you leave right where you found it” 

“Was that…a joke?” Alex finally asked

“Yes. A bad one. But yes,” Astra chuckled “I _do_ have a sense of humor, Alex” she said and Alex wondered when Astra started calling her by her first name

“I just never imagined you making jokes” she finally admitted

“Kara used to love my jokes,” Astra explained wistfully “the worse the better”

“Yeah, she still likes knock-knock jokes” Alex chuckled

“Knock-knock jokes?” Astra echoed

“Knock-knock,” Alex began, at Astra’s puzzled look she said “now you say ‘who’s there’?”

“Who’s there” the Kryptonian repeated, looking more and more confused by the second

“Rufus,” another blink “say ‘Rufus who’”

“Rufus who”

“Rufus the most important part of your house” Alex watched as Astra blinked, confused, then the realization dawned

“That’s _terrible_ ” she groaned, Alex laughed

“I know,” she said “but it was first time I ever made Kara laugh” she explained

“And you told her _that?_ ” Astra echoed, Alex nodded

“Yep” Astra shook her head

“I always knew she had a strange sense of humor” she muttered

******

Alex groaned as she sat up, sunlight streamed in through the cave entrance, glittering off thousands of tiny grains in the walls and floor, making the whole cavern shimmer and sparkle, and Alex suddenly wished she had a camera so she could take a picture and show Kara whenever she got back home…wait a minute she _did_ have a camera, digging around him pants pocket she pulled out her cell phone, surprised that it hadn’t gone floating out into space when she and Astra had been blown out an airlock, turning on the phone Alex was greeted with a ‘NO SERVICE AVAILABLE’ message, not all that surprising really, after all, she was just a _little_ outside the coverage area. Opening the camera she found a good angle and snapped a picture, saving it to show to Kara later.

Looking around, she suddenly realized that Astra was nowhere to be seen, quickly getting up (and trying not to panic) she climbed outside, relaxing as she spotted Astra sitting on a rock staring off into space as she idly nibbled on a blade of grass. Grinning to herself, Alex quickly snapped a picture of Astra and saved it to her phone, planning on printing it out and framing when she got back home, if anything the image of Astra sitting amongst a small forest of red bamboo was striking

“You know,” Alex began as she joined the other woman “if we’re going to keep sleeping on the ground we need to invest in like some air mattresses or something”

“By all means,” Astra began “I think I saw a sporting good store just over that ridge” Alex chuckled

“You OK?” she asked, Astra nodded

“I just need some time to be alone with my thoughts” she said

“Oh, sorry, I can—” Alex stopped when Astra gently touched her arm

“No, please, it’s all right, stay,” she said “I find that I…greatly enjoy you’re company”

“So do I,” Alex admitted, she turned to face Astra, finding herself getting lost in those bright blue-green eyes “I know shouldn’t,” she continued quietly “but I do”

“Why?” Astra wondered “I was your enemy, I still am more or less, the only reason you trust me is because you need me in order to survive” Alex shook her head

“It’s more than that,” she said “it’s…,” she faltered and looked away “I don’t know, it’s just...more” Astra nodded quietly

“We should start moving,” she said “we need to reach the capital before nightfall”

“Yeah, sure, of course” Alex mumbled, cursing her own stupidity as she got up and went back inside the cave and began to gather the supplies, of course Astra didn’t see her that way, why would she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No offense meant to any farmers or ranchers reading this :=)


	8. Beware the Lepoard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things in the forest...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's another update to The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy, thanks to everybody who commented/left kudos, and I hope everybody enjoys this installment, and away we go!

******

They’d been walking through a forest of that same sweet-smelling crimson red bamboo for over an hour and there was still no end in sight, Alex was seriously tempted to start doing the ‘are-we-there-yet, are-we-there-yet?’ thing just to kill time, but figured that annoying her only hope of survival was not in her best interests.

So she settled for humming, she actually wouldn’t have minded listening to some music, but 1) she had no cell service, so streaming some tunes was out, and 2) she figured Astra would mind the music, even though she didn’t seem to mind the humming, she even hummed a bit herself, a familiar tune, just not one Alex immediately recognized, but it was definitely from Earth, a tune that she knew even, one that Jeremiah used to listen to, without really realizing it she began to quietly sing

“When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you”

“When I go out,” Astra suddenly continued with a bright, clear voice “yeah, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you” Alex grinned

“If I get drunk,” she sang back “well, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you”

“And if I haver, hey, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you”

“But I would walk five hundred miles,” they both sang out “and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door”

“When I’m working,” Alex sang “yes, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s working hard for you”

“And when the money comes in for the work I do,” Astra sang back “I’ll pass almost every penny on to you”

“When I come home, oh, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who comes back home to you”

“And if I grow old, well, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s growing old with you”

“But I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door” and Alex had never felt so… _free_ , so _alive_ then she was in this moment while belting out an eighties one-hit wonder with Astra in a forest of crimson red bamboo on an alien planet who-knew-how-far from Earth. She took a breath, ready to really _belt_ out the chorus when Astra suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth

“Listen,” Astra hissed as she slowly removed her had, Alex frowned, at first hearing nothing besides the distant sound of rushing water (they were probably near a waterfall or a river she figured) then she heard it, a rustling sound, the sound of something moving through the underbrush, she nodded at Astra as the other woman slowly drew the plasma pistol at her hip and carefully took aim at the rustling stalks. 

Suddenly a creature, the same kind that Astra had killed the night before, erupted out of the stalks. Astra fired off a shot, winging it as it came leaping at them, throwing off its balance, and forcing it to land in a sprawl almost directly in front of them “ ** _RUN!!!!_** " Astra ordered, Alex didn’t need to be told twice, she turned and began sprinting through the forest alongside Astra, the creature quickly getting to its feet and taking chase, letting out a loud, high-pitched yipping sound like a hyena as it did

“What the fuck is that thing?!” Alex demanded

“Obviously it’s some kind of predator!” Astra spat back

“You _don’t know?!_ ”

“ _This isn’t my planet! I don’t know every single animal that roams its forests!!!_ ” Alex chanced a look back over her shoulder

“Shit! There’s two more!!” she announced

“I _have_ eyes!”

“Shut up and run!!” Alex gasped out as they tore through the thick red stalks, the leaves tearing at their clothes and hair while the creatures moved easily, ducking and weaving through the tall, tree-like stalks with ease, clearly having adapted to running and hunting in this kind of environment

“Split up!” Astra suddenly ordered

“ ** _ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!?!?_** ” Alex demanded

“They’re clearly pack animals,” Astra panted out “if we split up, we divide the pack, and then while they’re regrouping we can—”

“Right! Got it!” Alex interrupted “you break right, I’m going left!” they quickly zigzagged, crisscrossing each others paths before heading in opposite directions, and sure enough the three creatures suddenly skidded to a stop, unsure of which direction to take

******

Astra gasped for breath as she sprinted harder, pushing her body to the breaking point. All her time spent on Earth, relishing in her newfound powers had made her forget how weak and vulnerable she really was, but she couldn’t stop now, she needed to keep going, long enough to at least double back and eliminate one of the creatures. Gasping, she paused to catch her breath, sucking in deep lungfuls of air as she leaned against one of the plants for support

“Astra” she looked up to see Alura’s ghost standing front of her

“Not…now” she gasped out, Alura shook her head

“Look behind you” she said, turning Astra could see the foliage rustling as one the creatures barreled through the thicket towards her, ignoring the burning in her legs, Astra started running again

******

Meanwhile, Alex was also sprinting as hard as she could, trying to keep one step of the creature that was brave enough to follow her. Struggling, she managed to get a grip on the pistol at her waist

“Disengage safety!” she barked into it, once it chirped in response, she turned fire off a shot; the blast missed the creature by a mile and only served to make Alex lose her footing. Gasping, she tumbled headfirst into a pair of the bamboo-like stalks, expecting to hit them like a brick wall, instead she found that the stalks flexed and bowed under her weight before they suddenly sprang back, knocking Alex flat on her back. Springing up into a crouch, Alex could see that the creature had paused only a few feet away, all it would need was one big leap and she was a goner.

Unless…

She looked back at the two stalks she’d ran into, suddenly remembering an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs pulled back a tree branch and knocked Elmer Fudd out of his shoes when it snapped back, it couldn’t be that easy

Could it?

Figuring she didn’t have anything to lose, she quickly scrambled to her feet and wedged herself between the two stalks, wrapping her arms around the larger of the two, and bending it back as much as she could “ _c’mon!_ ” she hissed as the creature slowly began to stalk forward, building up speed as it galloped forward, Alex could feel her grip on the stalk start to slip, she had time this just right. The creature sprung up, leaping towards her, Alex let go of the stalk, watching as it snapped back, whip-like, aiming right for the creature’s head…

Only for the creature to easily sidestep the stalk and actually _grab_ it with it’s front paws (claws?) and then swing itself up and around and through the two stalks like an Olympic pole vaulter, and all Alex could think as the creature landed nimbly in front of her on all fours like a cat was _‘fucking space monkey!’_.

She scrambled back, fumbling around in the dirt for the plasma pistol, where was it? The creature was now slowly stalking towards her, growling, this was it Alex thought, she was as good as dead. There was a sudden rustling from the canopy and the sudden ‘arf-arf’ sound of a plasma pistol as two bolts of yellow energy suddenly sailed out of the canopy to strike the creature in the back.

As it writhed and hissed in pain, struggling to find its attacker, Alex looked up see Astra about halfway up one of the stalks, one knee hooked around the main body of the stalk, while using her other foot and free hand as a brace, looking like some kind of female Tarzan as she fired down on the creature, plasma pistol barking once as the third shot hit its mark dead center in between the creature’s eyes, killing it instantly. As she watched Astra easily hop down from her perch—landing with the kind of grace and fluidity that Alex herself would _never_ be able achieve—Alex found herself thinking that all the other woman needed was a fur bikini al la Raquel Welch and the image of her as some kind of wild jungle girl would be complete.

Astra reached down and roughly hauled Alex to her feet, shaking her out of fantasies of Astra in a bikini

“Where’s your weapon?” she asked, Alex shook her head

“Lost it when I fell” she panted out, there was a sudden crashing sound, and both women looked up as the two other creatures suddenly tore through the underbrush after them

“Never mind! Keep moving!” Astra ordered, pushing Alex through the foliage “don’t stop!” she gasped out as the two creatures both yipped and yowled like hyenas as they gave chase

“They’re gaining!!” Alex reported

“Keep going!!” Astra ordered as they tore through the thicket, neither of them caring _where_ they were going, just so long as it was _away_ from the two creatures

“Oh! Shit!” Alex suddenly skidded to a stop as she suddenly found herself leaning over the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking a _massive_ ravine, which dropped hundreds of feet into a river below. She gasped as two strong arms suddenly wrapped around her waist and yanked her back

“Not that way!” the Kryptonian snarled as she yanked Alex to safety. Spinning around both women found that the two creatures had encircled them, one on their left, one their right, they were trapped, the only way out was a hundred foot drop into a-hopefully-deep-river, Astra raised her pistol and fired, killing one creature, but as she turned to shoot the other one the pistol suddenly let out a buzzing sound, like a cell phone on vibrate, only deeper

“ _Ammunition expended_ ” the pistol announced, Astra stuffed it back into her waistband with a snarl of annoyance

“Great!” Alex spat as the last of the three creatures began to approach them; Alex tightened her grip on Astra’s arm as she felt the earth start to crumble beneath her heels as they backed away

“And we can’t reach our packs at the moment,” Astra grumbled, she frowned “do you smell something sweet?” she suddenly asked, sniffing the air, Alex stared at her

“NO! I DO NOT SMELL SOMETHING SWEET!!!” Alex yelled “we’re about to get eaten by an alien hyena and you’re asking me if I smell something sweet?!?”

“No time, _jump!!_ ”

“ _What?!?!_ ” Astra suddenly grabbed her and then hurled them both off the edge of the cliff…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric content from "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" by the Proclaimers


	9. Life, the Universe, and Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling off a cliff felt a lot less like what Alex had imagined falling off a cliff would feel like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, here's an update to The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy (and, yes, I WILL be updating over the holidays)

******

Falling off a cliff felt a lot less like what Alex had imagined falling off a cliff would feel like (not that she had actually imagined what falling off a cliff would feel like) and instead felt more like tripping and falling flat on her ass on the sidewalk. She writhed on something cold and hard and distinctly _solid_ as she struggled to breathe, choking and wheezing for breath after having the wind knocked out of her

“Get up!” she felt hands roughly clawing at her arms “it’s coming for us! Get up!” Astra ordered, her voice sounding more frantic “Alex _please!_ I can’t carry you! You have to get up!” weakly, Alex managed to sit up and focus on her immediate surroundings. Looking around Alex could see that she and Astra were now lying on a large outcropping off rock that jutted out from the cliff face “come on!” Astra hissed, looking over Alex saw that the creature was probing whatever barrier or hologram that they’d just fallen through.

After a few seconds of probing the barrier, the creature suddenly reared back and leapt forward, the air around it rippling like water as it passed through whatever hologram or cloak that Alex and Astra had just fallen (read thrown) through. As it landed in front of them Astra lunged forward, drawing the knife from the small of her back, and facing down the animal. Hissing at her the creature began to circle her, while Astra moved in the opposite direction, keeping herself between Alex and the beast. Finally with a growl the animal lunged, Astra sidestepped, tucking and rolling onto her back, and actually physically _grappling_ with it, pushing one arm against it’s throat and holding its head and jaws away from her head, and burying the knife into its flank with the other, before somersaulting over, kicking it off her.

Roaring in pain, the beast suddenly grabbed at her arm and started to drag her with it as it suddenly went tumbling off the edge

“Astra!” stumbling, Alex staggered to her feet and lunged, sliding forward on her belly as she reached out for Astra, grabbing her hand just as both she and the creature went sliding over the edge into the river below, cringing as she saw the animal plunge into the river below, Alex began to tug on Astra’s hand “you OK?!” she asked as Astra swung by her outstretched arm, Astra spat out something rude-sounding in Kryptonese in response “hold on! I got you!” gasping with the effort, Alex managed to get to her feet and haul Astra back up. Gasping for air both of them collapsed to ground

“Thank you” Astra panted out as she flopped down onto her stomach, gasping for breath, Alex reached out and weakly patted her on the shoulder

“Any time,” she gasped out as she flopped onto her back, she looked down at herself “oh no” she groaned

“What is it?” Astra asked

“I tore my shirt” Alex muttered, she frowned when she saw Astra’s shoulders suddenly start shaking, her whole body trembling as she looked up at Alex, grinning

“Then I…guess…you’re…really in trouble now!” she suddenly burst out laughing, and Alex couldn’t help but join her

******

Alex wasn’t quite sure how long they lay there, trying to catch their breath, but at some point Astra had rolled onto her back and was now looking up at the sky, seeming lost in thought

“I lost the knife” she said suddenly, Alex blinked and looked up

“What?”

“The knife, I lost it”

“O…K” Astra turned to her

“I liked that knife” she said simply, Alex stared at her and suddenly burst into a fit of giggles

“That’s what bothers you?” she asked “the fact that you lost your knife?” Astra shrugged

“I liked that knife” she said, Alex shook her head and slowly sat up

“ _Oh wow_ ” she breathed when she suddenly looked around. The outcropping of rock they were laying on had clearly been carved or otherwise shaped into an almost perfect circle, stretching out from it was a large covered bridge as wide as a two-lane street, glittering in gold and lined with towering statues, while at the other end of the bridge, partly obscured by the mist, were two massive waterfalls flaking a massive city made of towering golden domes and minarets, reminding Alex of something out of the _Arabian Nights_

“Beautiful isn’t?” Astra asked from behind her, blinking Alex turned back to her

“Is that…?” Astra nodded

“This is the Bridge of Prosperity,” she said, nodding to the bridge “beyond that, the Royal Palace of Daxam,” she slowly stood up, wincing as she got to her feet, she held out a hand to Alex, who easily took it without hesitation and allowed Astra to pull her upright “we need to hurry,” the Kryptonian said “nightfall will be upon us soon” Alex nodded

“Lead on, General”

******

Walking the length of the bridge was taking _forever_. In addition to being as wide as a two-lane street it apparently was just as _long_ as a two-lane street

“This’ll take days!” Alex groaned, Astra chuckled

“No, it won’t,” she soothed “come, just a few hours more”

“What’s the point of this?” Alex wondered “if Daxam was just as advanced as Krypton was, then why would they make people _walk_ to the Royal Palace?”

“Why build a Royal Palace as large as a city?” Astra asked rhetorically “simple: ego, the Daxamites wanted to show how rich they are, how splendid and decedent their planet was,” she gestured to the statues flaking them “each of these figures represents a king or queen of Daxam’s past,” she explained “each of those monarchs were determined to prove how much better they were compared to us, just as we were determined to do the same in our scientific advancements

“You mentioned the two of you didn’t get along” Alex noted, Astra nodded

“We used to have a saying on Krypton: _‘May hex kolor Daxam’_ ” Alex blinked

“May hex—oh,” she felt her face heat up “that’s…explicit” Astra nodded

“Like you said, we didn’t get along, Daxamites saw Kryptonians as self-righteous and borderline oppressive, to them we were…’busybodies’, I think is the proper term in English, we constantly interfered in the affairs of others, upsetting the long-standing traditions and values of other species and replacing them with our own views and morals. Has Kara told you about the Codex and genesis chambers?” Alex nodded

“Yeah, almost every Kryptonian was born from an artificial womb, genetically engineered to be as close to biologically ‘perfect’ as you could be,” she explained “she told me she got teased a little by the other kids because she was a natural birth”

“She never let it stop her,” Astra recalled fondly “Alura and I made sure of that. But anyway, to Daxam, the idea that we would remake ourselves as ‘perfect’ was seen as a sign of moral decay to them, a loss of individuality” 

“And Krypton?” Alex asked

“To Krypton, Daxamites were a planet full of self-absorbed, hedonistic, decedent…hooligans who cared nothing for others except when it served their own ends”

“And, let me, guess, the truth was somewhere in the middle,” Alex said, Astra nodded “some Daxamites could quite selfless and caring, and some Kryptonians could very selfish and arrogant” Astra nodded, they lapsed into a comfortable silence for about ten minutes before Alex spoke up again “hey, once we get there, how do we get a hold of a ship anyway?” she wondered “I mean, unless you’re planning on stealing one we’d need to, I don’t know, buy one I guess?”

“Don’t worry, Alex,” Astra said with a familiar smirk “just leave that to me”


	10. Life, the Universe, and Everything, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time!! Now, be careful, there is a bit of angst here, but don't worry it'll be fixed soon enough

******

“May I ask you a question?” Astra asked suddenly. They’d been walking for at least an hour more in comfortable silence, the sun had set about ten minutes before and large, beach ball-sized globes positioned between each statue had lit up in sequence as the sun set, bathing the bridge in a soft, orange glow that, combined with the sound of rushing water from the two waterfalls still in the distance, made the whole affair suddenly seem magical and almost romantic to Alex’s eyes

“Sure” she answered

“Why are you still holding my hand?” Alex froze and looked down, finding that, yes, she was still holding Astra’s hand, she apparently hadn’t bothered to let go since Astra had helped her up hours before on the other side of the bridge

“Why are _you?_ ” she shot back, Astra chuckled and actually blushed

“Touché,” she replied, she stopped, pulling Alex to a stop as well. Turning to the younger woman, Astra reached out and gently brushed a bit of hair away from Alex’s eyes “does this answer you question?” she suddenly leaned in a pressed a gentle, almost chaste, kiss against Alex’s lips. Alex blinked, finding that Astra pulled back almost as quick as she had leaned in “we’d better hurry,” she said turning back to their journey “we’re only a few minutes from the Palace gates”

“I—uh…you…what?!” Alex stared at her “hang on!” she yanked hard on their still-joined hands, pulling Astra to a stop “you can’t just, just… _do that_ and then act like nothing happened!!”

“What would you prefer I do?” Astra asked, turning to face her “that I get down on my knees and profess my undying love for you right here, light-years from Earth in a potentially hostile environment where our chances for escape are still uncertain?” she raised an eyebrow challengingly at Alex, and Alex felt herself falter

“But, you…”

“I wouldn’t think that you, of all people, would be so naïve, Alex,” Astra noted “I am still your enemy,” she pointed out “once we return to Earth my options are very limited, the best I can hope for is that I am allowed visits from both you and Kara after your government imprisons me”

“Astra,” Alex tried "we shut down Myriad, we defeated Non, you don't have to worry about being imprisoned again" she said

"I'm glad to hear that," Astra replied "but it changes nothing"

 _'It changes everything!'_ Alex wanted to scream, but faltered still, feeling her fantasies of _something_ with Astra starting to slip further and further away, because Astra was _right_ , the government probably wouldn’t just allow her to run free, even if they did agree that, because she had been dead, any charges against her were now void, they still wouldn’t just let her go free, people like General Lane would protest, and even J’onn would have reservations, and even she signed a sworn statement about all of this (assuming anybody actually believed her) it would still be her word against theirs, one woman against an entire country. General Lane still wasn't happy that the President had allowed J'onn to remain at his post as Director of the DEO since revealing that he was a Martian “come,” Astra gently tugged on their joined hands “we’ll speak no more of this, right now we must focus on getting you home” and as Alex followed along, she couldn’t help but replay those words in her head

_Focus on getting_ you _home_

You

Singular

Astra wasn’t planning on joining her

******

“That was an awful thing you just did,” Astra ignored the ghost’s words “Astra,” Alura implored “you’re not a fugitive anymore, you’re not on the run anymore, you have a chance for a new beginning, and, for some reason I currently cannot comprehend, that girl _loves_ you, despite your cold-hearted stubbornness,” Astra glanced over at Alex, who was putting on a brave face, although was clearly hurt by Astra’s words, even though their hands were still joined, fingers tightly intertwined “you’re here” Alura’s voice brought Astra back and she looked up to see the gates suddenly looming above them.

“So, now what?” Alex asked, and her voice lacked that bright spirit it had held only hours before. In response Astra nodded to the gates.

Entering the gates was like entering another world for Alex, up until now—aside from their encounter with the three animals in the forest—Daxam had been still and quiet, but beyond the gates everything was bright and vibrant. They appeared to have walked into some kind of market or bazaar, multiple stalls were set up on either side of a large plaza selling various things, from food to what looked like machine parts, with hawkers calling out their wares as loud as they could to drown out their competitors. There were also street performers, dancers, musicians, acrobats. Everything was vibrant and _alive_.

“Incredible isn’t it?” Astra asked softly, Alex blinked and looked over at her and managed to nod

“Is this a celebration of some kind?” she finally asked

“As far as I am aware, no”

“Then this just… _happens_ everyday?”

“From what I remember about my assignments here, yes,” Astra answered, Alex blinked

“You were assigned here?” she asked, Astra nodded

“Once, when I was still a very young, very naive cadet,” she explained “it was something an initiation amongst the newest recruits, to see how they would fair on Daxam, being assigned to a world the exact polar opposite to our own, populated by people who despised you on a good day,” she gestured to the crowds of performers “we were a rather socially conservative people,” she explained “so to do such things as dance in the street was something foreign and scandalous to us, something only done at celebrations or festivals,” she held up their still-joined hands “even something like this would have caused a minor scene” she said softly, Alex pulled her hand away

“I could really use a drink right now” she mumbled

“Here,” Astra took her arm, grasping above the elbow “there’s a food stall right over there, come” she kept a firm grasp on Alex as she maneuvered them through the crowd, muttering quiet apologies as she bumped into people

“Wait a minute,” Alex said as they reached the stall “how do we--?” she trailed off as Astra held up her other hand, several small, flat strips of metal now resting in her palm, she chuckled at Alex’s expression

“Product of a misspent youth,” she explained as she leaned forward to the seller [how much?] she asked in Kryptonese

[Ten Cs,] the seller, an old man answered, he pointed [now back to the end of the line, honey] he ordered

“Hey, how come I heard that in Kryptonese instead of English?” Alex wondered as they moved to the back the-thankfully-short line

“Because, the translator implant the Vogons no doubt injected you with can only translate one language at a time,” Astra explained “by now it’s most likely already assimilating Kryptonese, but at the expense of the Vogon language”

“Good riddance,” Alex muttered “so, is this thing harmful? The implant I mean?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Astra answered “although I could remove it for you, if you wanted” Alex shook her head

“No thanks, I think I’ll keep it, it might come in handy” she said as they reached the front of the line

“How many?” the seller asked, and Alex was pleased to hear it as English

“Two, and something to drink” Astra answered, as the man loaded up two round flat pieces of dough with what looked like some kind of grilled meat and toppings Alex looked around the rest of plaza, spotting various posters and banners all proclaiming variations of the same message, all hailing someone named ‘Bal Gand’ a woman if the picture on the posters were any indication and who was, apparently, the current queen of Daxam. Alex was about to tell this to Astra when she turned back to hear yelling

“I told you twenty!” the seller insisted

“You said ‘ten’ before” Astra insisted calmly, the old man sniffed

“That was before I found out I was serving a pair of Kryptonains,” he pointed to the Crest on Astra’s uniform and then actually spit on the ground “twenty”

“Here,” Astra dropped some the metal strips in her hand on the counter “that’s nineteen, and not single chip more” she took the two food items from him, handed one to Alex along with a sweet-smelling drink of some kind, and then stalked off, muttering darkly under her breath

“Boy, you weren’t kidding about Daxmites not liking Kryptonian, were you?” Alex muttered as she followed Astra through the crowd to a large fountain in the center of the plaza

“No,” Astra muttered, she sat down on the edge of the fountain “here, sit down and eat” she instructed

“So,” Alex began, taking a cautious bite out of her food, which appeared to be something like cross between a pizza and a taco “how do we get a ship?” Astra pointed to a large building

“That’s a processing center for newly arrival aliens,” she explained “under interstellar law, you, as the only Human on Daxm, become responsible for Earth, meaning that you become its custodian, and in order to grant you this title, they need to find where Earth is in relation to Daxam” Alex nodded

“Which means you can find out Earth’s coordinates,” she realized “but that still doesn’t tell me how we’re going to find a ship” Astra shrugged

“I may just have to steal one” she admitted

“Great”


	11. Don't Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double update!!!!

******

After finishing her meal and drink (which had tasted a little like peach) Alex was ready to head out, the sooner she got home, the better

“This will by no means be easy,” Astra warned as they entered the massive building “in fact it will very probably send one of us teetering on the brink of insanity”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence” Alex muttered

“I was once in a battle which claimed the live of close twenty million people,” Astra explained “and I would much rather be back there than deal with these bureaucrats,” she said, she grabbed a pad of some kind and held it out to Alex “place your hand here” she instructed, Alex did so and watched at it scanned her palm, the image of a DNA helix appearing on the screen

“Now what?” she asked, Astra nodded to an impossibly long line “oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!!”

“I warned you” Astra muttered as they got in line

 ******

“Next!” Alex jerked; startled to find that they’d reached the end of the line, it had only taken…she looked at her watch, two hours Earth-time. The woman behind the high counter reminded Alex of every DMV clerk she’d ever met. She looked down her nose at the two of them, as if they were wasting her valuable time “pad!” she snapped, Astra slid the pad forward, the woman studied it for a moment and then filed it, handing another pad to Astra “take this titles and identifications, level four, section eight,” she ordered “next!”

******

After a dizzying journey around level four, they finally found section eight. Astra slid the pad forward through the window, the clerk looked down at it and then promptly slid it back

“This is titles and _identities_ ,” he sneered “ _not_ titles and identifications”

It all went downhill from there

“I can’t touch this without a tax renewal form” was one clerk’s response

“This is tax revenue, not tax renewal”

“You must fill out a title request and an application”

“We can’t get the title request _without_ the application” Astra snarled

“Not my problem” which quickly became the response whenever one of the two women pointed a fault in the system, they couldn’t get Form 2-A without getting Form 2 ‘Not my problem’, they needed Form twenty three in order to get form twenty ‘Not my problem’.

At one point Alex actually saw Astra softly banging her head on the wall, cursing in Kryptonese. Finally, after what felt like a full day (it probably was) they found their way to ‘titles and identifications’, and that was only _after_ Astra paid off at least three clerks and Alex threatened two more with bodily injury. Titles and identifications was deep in the bowels of the building, probably somewhere near the gates of hell Alex thought, and was staffed by a very quiet old man, who shuffled forward, squinted at them, and then greeted them both quite warmly

“Ah, so nice to have visitors again!” he exclaimed “come in, come in,” he ushered them into a surprising large room and gestured to two worn, but still, comfy-looking chairs “now, let’s see here,” he studied the pad “ah, a loner request! My, my, we haven’t had one of those in years!” he frowned between them “now, is this request for you?” he asked Astra “or for your pretty young wife?”

“I’m not her wife” Alex corrected

“Oh?” the old man’s bushy eyebrows rose “concubine, then?” he asked pleasantly

“None of the above” Astra answered politely

“Ah, but it _is_ for her, yes?” he asked as he filed it “good, good, now then,” he busied himself with a large, rounded pedestal in the middle of the room, giving it hard kick when it wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do “damned budget cuts,” he muttered as the object suddenly projected a hologram of a massive starfield above them “now, then, if you would please?” he gestured to the hologram. Astra stood up and scanned the slowly rotating image, finally pointing to a small star off to the far side

“Here,” she said “the third planet from the sun, it’s called ‘Earth’” the old man blinked as the hologram flickered and vanished, the projector hissing almost menacingly at him, in response he gave it a swift kick

“Earth?” he repeated “is that really what it’s called?” at Astra and Alex’s nod he blinked “what a terribly unimaginative name for a planet, you might as well call it ‘dirt’, ‘planet dirt’," he muttered “now then,” he wheeled a table-mounted device over to Alex “would the young lady be so kind as to put your hand through here, please?” he gestured to the metal hoop mounted on the table “palm up, please” he added as Alex hesitantly slid her hand through, the metal hoop hummed to life, two thin beams of light aiming at the inside of her wrist, swiftly—and painlessly—etching a small, coin-sized, glowing tattoo on her skin “there we are!” the old man wheeled the device away and held out another pad “here are the rules and regulations of planetary custodianship as pursuant to interstellar law,” he explained as he handed it to her, he turned to Astra and placed a hand on her shoulder “and my deepest condolences to you, madam, on your loss” he said, Astra bowed her head respectfully

“Thank you, elder” she said softly

 ******

“Oh, thank god, sunlight,” Alex sank down on the steps outside the building “I will never complain about the DMV ever again” she muttered

“I did warn you,” Astra said as she joined Alex “may I see it?” she asked, Alex blinked

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure,” she slid her sleeve back, the tattoo was circular, about the size of a silver dollar and glowed a faint gold, with what looked like a miniature model of the Earth’s solar system in the middle “I always did want a tattoo,” she joked, Astra chuckled as leaned in to examine it, her breath ghosting across Alex’s wrist “Astra, I—” Astra shushed her quietly, her other hand wounding its way into her hair and pulling her close

“No more talk” she said as she leaned in and soundly kissed Alex, pulling away a few moments later

“What happened to ‘this changes nothing’?” Alex wondered breathlessly, Astra smirked

“If I am going to be imprisoned once we return to Earth, I would at least like to enjoy my freedom first,” she said “don’t you agree, love?” she asked, Alex nodded and leaned in for another kiss, only for Astra to stop her

“ _Now what?_ ” Alex demanded

“Oh, nothing in particular,” Astra dismissed “just that there’s a plasma pistol being aimed at the back of my head” Alex sat up and looked up to see three big, burly men standing over them, all wearing official looking uniforms

“You are wanted for questioning” the one holding a gun to Astra’s head said

“And if we refuse?” Astra wondered, her response was for the guard to soundly pistol-whip her to the ground

“No resisting!” he barked as two more grabbed each of Alex’s arms, the last thing she saw was a fist heading for her face, then nothing...


	12. Total Perspecitive Vortex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it there's a tiny little speck, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, 'You are here'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, here's another update to the General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy, only one more chapter to go, and in case anyone was wondering, this fic takes place sometime after the end of season one but before season two, so in a world where season one just ended with Kara and the gang celebrating being a family, no Kryptonian pod came smashing down, and, apologies to Dean Caine fans, but in this fic, Jeremiah is still dead, as in actually dead, as in when J'onn read Colonel Harper's mind he didn't see Jeremiah locked in Cadmus, it makes this particular fic less complicated and I felt that having Jeremiah still be alive after all this time took something away from Alex's character, deprived her of a defining moment.
> 
> Anyway, rant over, now ONWARDS!!

******

_Alex ran through tall grasses, gleefully outpacing her pursuer, and disappearing into the grass_

_“I’m going to get you!” the girl called out as she ran through the field_

_“Not today, you won’t!” Alex taunted, she sprinted forward, charging out of the tall stalks, tackling the other girl to the ground “I win!” she cheered_

_“You cheated” her sister accused with pout_

_“No, I didn’t,” Alex scooped up a handful of soft, moist earth and promptly dumped it onto her sister’s head “now I did”_

_“Astra!” Alex looked up at the voice “Astra In-Ze stop that this instant”_

_“Yes, Mother” she climbed off Alura and ducked her head_

_“Oh!” her mother scowled as she bent down “now look at what you’ve done, dirt all over your sister’s new tunic”_

_“We were only playing” Alura defended her, as she always did, their mother sighed_

_“Come on inside, dinner’s almost ready,” she said, ushering Alura off, she paused as she glanced down at Alex “honestly, Astra” she sighed, but Alex ignored it, just like she ignored the stares of the other children who gawked at the ‘twins’, the ‘oddities’, the ‘defects’, she didn’t need them, all she needed was Alura, her sister, her best friend_

_But then things changed. Alura became a highly respected judge, and Alex a member of the Military Guild, and then they were no longer best friends, not always anyway, now they arguing more often then not, and Zor-El as kind as he was, couldn’t understand, he was a younger brother, not a twin, he would never understand, no matter how hard he tried. The only bright spot was Kara, her darling little one, and Alex knew that she would do anything for Kara._

 _As she stared down at the dead body of the guard that Non had strangled to death with his bare hands, she reminded herself of that, telling herself it was necessary, unfortunate, but necessary, the man’s death would save millions._

_Then Kara was signaling her with the spy beacon, and she came as called even though she knew that it was a mistake, she tried to explain to Kara as gently as she could about what was going on, but she doubted if Kara—sweet, innocent Kara—truly understood, and then Alura had come in, quietly ushering Kara out of the room, Alex pled, begged, tried to make Alura_ see _to make her_ listen _but she wouldn’t, and as the guards dragged her away she screamed and raved, spitting out every insult she could think of, telling Alura that she hated her, despised her, wished that she had never had a sister when in reality she couldn’t imagine such an existence. And at the end, before Alura sentenced her to Fort Rozz, she told Alex that she believed her, that she would try to make people listen, and finally, that she loved her._

_Then came Fort Rozz and all its horrors, in this dark, hellish, nightmarish place, Non became a comfort, a familiarity, even as Alura’s ghost appeared before her time and again, usually after the guards had gotten bored with beating her, telling her to get up, to fight back. Then, the prison was moving, escaping the Phantom Zone, the inmates rioting, slaughtering the guards en mass, and it was all Alex could do to maintain a grip on her control of her followers._

 _Then came Earth, a primitive world, far from Krypton, a world whose yellow sun granted her and the rest of the Kryptonians incredible powers, but one that was on the verge of ecological destruction, just like Krypton was, whose armies and an organization called the ‘Department of Extra-normal Operations’ sought to exterminate them like vermin, while at the same time these people cheered on a Kryptonian male, Jor-El’s son, a man that the Humans had dubbed ‘Superman’._

_And then, then, after over a decade of planning, of strategizing, and ensuring that Myriad would_ work _came Kara, her darling niece was alive and well, and, oh, how much Alex wanted Kara by her side, together, as a family again, even though Non wanted her killed. And with Kara came a human, the same brave, defiant human that the Hellhermite had brought before her, the same girl who had defeated the Hellgermite._

 _Alex wasn’t sure of their connection, they were more than just colleagues, more than lovers. But even more shocking was the knowledge that this Human actually_

cared.

 _That she actually cared for_ her _was even more shocking. After General Lane had tortured her, after Kara had betrayed her, it was the Human who came into her cell, lowering the kryptonite without a word, and then, when Kara agreed to make the exchange, it was the Human who faced down General Lane, showing bravery that Alex had only seen a handful of times, later telling her at the exchange site that, hopefully, it might bring a peaceful end to the war._

And when Non revealed that he had planned to ambush the Humans, Alex found she couldn’t allow it, couldn’t more blood to be split, so she stopped it, convinced Non to honor the bargain, although she had warned the Humans that it was not compassion that motivated her, she was lying, because she couldn’t bear to see Kara or her…acquaintance hurt.

_Then Non had sent a black mercy after Kara, and Alex tracked down the only person she knew that could even possibly help, where she finally learned how this human and Kara were connected_

_Sisters_

_“If you are her sister, and I am her aunt, what does that make us?” she demanded_

_“Nothing” was the girl’s response, but despite that, when the DEO launched an assult to stop them from beginning the final stage towards Myriad, it was the human who tied to convince her to stop, to help them_

_“Please,” she’d whispered, even as Alex had a hand wrapped around her throat “…help us” and it had been, oh, so,_ tempting _if the Martian had not interfered she just might have stopped, joined this human and fought_ alongside _Kara instead of against her._

_But it was not to be_

_And as the kryptonite sword tore through her, as she collapsed to the ground, the life draining out of her, as the Martian and the Human both stared down at her, equal expressions of shock and disbelief on their faces, as the Human called Kara, allowed her to say her goodbyes, Alex suddenly realized something in those final, dim moments_

_She had fallen in love with Alexandra Danvers_

******

Alex sat up with a scream, clutching at her chest, choking and gagging at a phantom pain burning through her...


	13. Total Perspective Vortex, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Hope everybody had a good and happy Christmas/are enjoying Hanukkah, here's the next chapter in the General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy, as you can see from the tags, I already have a sequel in the works, but for now, here's some more General Danvers

******

“Alex! Breathe!” strong hands grasped her shoulders, then moved to her face, forcing her to look into concerned blue-green eyes “breathe, darling! You need to breathe!” Astra ordered

“ _It hurts!!_ ” she sobbed, writhing in agony at the burning, tearing _pain_ in her chest

“I know it feels like it hurts, but it’s not real! It’s only a memory! _It’s not real!!_ ” still gagging Alex somehow managed to suck in a gulp of air, feeling the pain burning through her lessen into a dull ache almost immediately as she sagged against Astra, trembling and shivering in a cold sweat

“W-wha…” she tried

“Shh, don’t try to speak,” Astra soothed, fingers gently running through her hair “you’ve been subjected to a neural scan,” she explained gently “the Daxamites use it for interrogations, essentially performing a telepathic scan via technology,” she took a shaky breath “but…unfortunately, one mind is incapable of handling the load by itself, so a second mind is needed to help bear the load, in this case mine. An unintended side-effect of this ‘neural bridging’ as it were, is that both parties experience each others memories and thoughts,” Alex blinked up at her, Astra nodded “yes, you saw into my mind, my memories, while I saw into yours” she explained

“So…,” Alex finally managed to find her voice “we…you…”

“Yes,” Astra whispered, head bowed “I’m sorry,” she said “I’m sorry that you had to see…that” Alex pulled back, staring at Astra with new eyes, she’d seen far more than just Astra’s memories of Earth, she’d seen _everything_ , everything memory, every act, every deed, good and bad, that made Astra who she was, she’d seen it, felt it, lived it, for a moment, she’d _been_ Astra. Shaking, she reached out and cupped Astra’s cheek

“So,” she began, swallowing against her dry throat “you saw my memories?” Astra nodded

“Yes,” she said softly “I’m sorry about your father, he seemed like a good man” Alex nodded dimly, feeling her strength return, even as her head swam, flashes of memories that were not hers dancing before her minds eye

“God, this is…” she tried

“Fucked up, I know,” Astra confirmed, Alex stared at her, Astra shrugged “it seem an appropriate choice of words given our situation” Alex chuckled

“So, will I keep these memories?” she asked as she leaned against Astra, no longer using her as a life preserver, but just resting

“Most likely,” Astra confirmed “but, in time, your mind with eventually learn to separate my memories from your own,” she explained as she ran her fingers through Alex’s hair “by the way, Vicky was a fool to reject you” Alex chuckled

“Saw that, did you?” she asked

“Experienced it,” Astra confirmed “it’s a shame she reacted so badly, that was a very nice kiss”

“Yeah, like your first kiss was any better?” Alex shot back “she tasted like _fish!_ ”

“She was a fisherman’s daughter, of course she did,” Astra rolled her eyes “and at least she didn’t reject me because of my gender”

“No, just because you were a twin,” Alex blinked “this is a weird conversation. I mean, I _remember_ that, I remember it like I remember kissing Vicky, but…I know that its not my memory, it’s yours,” she shifted position so that she was now essentially laying in Astra’s lap (not a bad place to be, she thought) “it’s weird, but I can still…feel you,” she muttered, she tapped her temple “in here, like there’s…a part of you that got left behind” Astra nodded

“I know, so can I,” she tapped her own temple “I can feel you, your strength, your compassion,” she frowned and looked away “ _….your heart_ ” she whispered

“I guess…,” Alex began “there’s no point in my saying it anymore, is there?”

“I still would enjoy hearing it,” Astra confessed “very much” Alex sat up

“You first” she dared, Astra smirked

“I love you” she said easily, Alex bit back a laugh

“I love you too,” she said, even though there was no real point in saying it anymore, she _knew_ that Astra loved her, felt it, experienced herself, just as Astra had with her “god, that went _so_ much better than my whole mess with Vicky” Astra chuckled

“I seem to remember that you were so nervous, that you couldn’t decide whether or not to run, faint, or vomit all over her shoes” Alex scowled

“Hey, you trying coming out to your best friend that you’re not only gay but that you’re attracted to her too,” she teased “besides, at least Raya Vo-Ma didn’t start screaming at you,” she scowled “god, this is so _weird!_ ”

“Try to focus on the positive aspects of this,” Astra pointed out “you now have access to my knowledge of Kryptonian technology and military strategy”

“That’s true,” Alex realized “yeah, right now, I’ve already calculated twenty different ways we could get out of this”

“All of which would end badly for us if attempted”

“Yep,” Alex confirmed “hey, where are we anyway?” she wondered as she looked around the room for the first time. They were clearly in a cell of some kind, but it was larger than the cell on the Vogon ship had been and unlike that cell, which had been dingy and dark, this cell was a bright, almost blinding, pristine white. The room was completely featureless, there were no doors or vents that Alex could see, and in fact the very corners of the room seemed to blend in and disappear; giving Alex the sickening sensation that she was floating, the black of Astra’s uniform seemed darker than normal, drawing Alex in like a beacon as she kept laying there in Astra’s lap, trying to ignore the obvious tear in the fabric, the tear she’d made from plunging a kryptonite sword into the other woman. She shivered as another spasm of phantom pain shot through her

“Hey,” she looked up as Astra gently brushed her fingertip across her cheek, it was like what she did when they first met in that warehouse, but now she knew that Astra had done it because she just hadn’t been able to resist, she’d been attracted to Alex from the start, long before she knew that she and Kara were close “it’s only a memory” Astra soothed

“But it’s _your memory_ of what _I_ did” Alex whispered, unable to keep the shock and horror out of her voice, Astra shook her head as she gently ran her fingers through Alex’s hair

“And I forgive you,” she whispered “I always will,” she smiled softly “now, you were asking where we were?” Alex nodded

“Yeah”

“We’re on a Daxamite ship,” Astra explained “heading for Earth” Alex sat up, trying to ignore the way the blinding, featureless room made her dizzy and disoriented

“Why would they take us to Earth?” she wondered “not that I’m complaining” she added

“I overheard two of the guards talking as they dragged us in here,” Astra began “apparently they detected a Kryptonian beacon coming from Earth, which is why they arrested us in the first place

“Because the beacon’s coordinates matched up with my home planet,” Alex realized “and after viewing our memories…,” Astra nodded as Alex felt a shiver go down her spine, imaging thousands of more Kryptonains descending on Earth “but why bring us with them?” Alex wondered, in answer, Astra took her wrist and gently lifted her arm, turning her wrist so that Alex could see her new, still-glowing tattoo “oh, right,” Alex realized as more of Astra’s knowledge flitted past her mind’s eyes “legally they can’t do anything to Earth without my approval”

“Or without getting you to renounce your custodianship” Astra added, Alex grinned at her

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Astra snorted

“I was inside your head, I know _exactly_ what you’re thinking and it won’t work, even if we managed to get out of this cell there is an entire regiment of Daxamite soldiers all more than willing, downright eager in fact, to kill us”

“Well we have to get out of here somehow!” Alex snarled “I don’t know about you, but somehow I get the feeling that the Daxamites are not going to land in front of the White House and say ‘we come in peace’” Astra shook her head

“While they were interrogating us I found out something troubling,” she explained “when Krypton exploded, the debris struck Daxam’s moon, destabilizing its orbit, and by extension, the planet’s. Without the moon to steady it, Daxam’s orbit became unstable, forcing it closer to the sun, as a result it’s been ravaged by a series of increasingly dangerous solar storms for the past decade,” she looked Alex right in the eye, trying make her understand the severity of what she was saying “it’s a dying world, Alex, within one hundred of your years it will mostly like become a barren wasteland devoid of any life” Alex nodded grimly

“And let me guess they’ve been looking for a new place to live?” Astra nodded

“They’ve apparently tried to colonize at least two dozen worlds already without success, mostly because of a harsh environment, or because of native populations who refused to give up their world to invaders”

“And we just gave them the coordinates to a new planet to conquer” Alex grumbled

“And with the powers that Earth’s sun will grant them, they could do that quite easily” Astra confirmed, there was a distant thump and a door suddenly appeared, part of the blank wall becoming transparent before it slid open

“Inside!” a guard ordered, roughly shoving a familiar figure into the cell, the door slamming shut before Alex or Astra had a chance to move and try to escape

“Kara!” Alex rushed forwards, gathering Kara up in her arms

“Alex!” Kara returned the hug as hard as she dared, which, given the lack of yellow sunlight, wasn’t as hard as Alex expected

“Are you all right?” she asked

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a little dizzy is all,” Kara answered “what are you doing here?” she asked “you’ve been missing for over a week!”

“Would believe me if I said I was abducted by aliens?” Alex asked

“Right now, yes” Kara answered

“What about you, what are you doing here?” Alex wondered

“I don’t know, I was at home, J’onn called, told me that an alien ship had appeared in orbit, next thing I know, these two guys teleport in, grab me, and then the next thing I know, I’m here”

“Sounds about right,” Alex muttered “expect I was abducted by Vogons” Kara frowned

“Are those the…?”

“Big, scaly, like to eat people?” Kara nodded “yep, that sounds like them”

“Well, how you’d get away?” Kara wondered “I mean I don’t exactly see a bunch of _Daxamites_ actually rescuing you” and there was a bit of a sneer in her voice when she said ‘Daxamites’

“They didn’t,” Alex confirmed “Astra did,” she watched as Kara’s eyes widened as she took in Astra, felt her stiffen slightly "hey, it's OK, she's on our side"

"Are you sure?" Kara asked, sounding doubtful

"Trust me, if it weren't for her I'd be dead at least three times over," Alex told her, she gave Kara a gentle nudge "go on" she said gently, Kara shakily got her feet and approached Astra

“Hello, Kara,” Astra said softly as Kara walked up to her, before suddenly throwing her arms around Astra and hugging her as tight as she could, softly crying into her aunt’s shoulder “ _oh, little one, hush, hush_ ,” Astra soothed, running her fingers through Kara’s hair “come,” she pulled away “there’ll be time for reunions later, right now we have to figure out a way out of here” the door suddenly appeared again, three guards standing there, the one in the middle—clearly the leader—pointed at Kara and Alex

“You two. Come with us” he rumbled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :=)


	14. 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update!! And it just keeps getting longer and longer...

******

Neither Alex nor Kara had resisted as the guards had cuffed them and then roughly hauled them both through the corridors. Alex kept calm, kept quiet, and tried to filter through Astra’s knowledge floating around inside her head, assessing weak points, vulnerabilities, trying to memorize the dizzying route they were taking down lavishly decorated Arabian Night-style corridors filled with portraits of the same queen that Alex had seen in the plaza back on Daxam.

“Hey,” Kara whispered as she leaned forward “why do they want you?” in answer, Alex flexed her wrist as much as she could in the cuffs and showed off her new tattoo, she saw Kara’s eyes widen “wow, is that…?” she asked, but before Alex could answer beyond a quick nod, one of the guards gave Kara a hard shove in the back, nearly sending her to knees

“Silence, Kryptonian!” he barked, the sneer of disgust clear in his voice. Kara stumbled and glowered at him, but wisely kept her mouth shut as the guards marched them down the corridor.

As the group turned a corner, Alex suddenly felt a presence to her side. Glancing over to her right, she saw Alura standing there, walking alongside the two bruisers, Alex knew that, rationally, she should have been shocked to see the apparition, but having experienced Astra’s memories she found she wasn’t, if anything she was slightly annoyed at the interruption. The ghost frowned at her

“Blink once if you can see and hear me,” she said, Alex blinked once, Alura chuckled “it would appear that my sister was wrong, I am _not_ an hallucination,” Alex softly shook her head “after all,” the ghost continued “as you yourself know, the chances of two people sharing the same hallucination are astronomical. Although, to answer your obvious question, no, I don’t know what I am,” she frowned up at the two guards and then at Kara “you two seem to be in quite the, what is the expression, in a ‘pickle’?” Alex nodded “well, I have faith in you all, you’ll get out of this” Alex bit back a chuckle as the guards came to a stop in a large room with massive floor-to-ceiling windows that towered high above her, higher than the tallest Gothic cathedral in Europe and out through the windows directly across from her Alex found that she actually could see Europe along with the rest of Earth hanging peacefully suspended in space, looking so green and beautiful that Alex wanted to cry.

“Welcome home, Alexandra Danvers” a woman’s voice suddenly said, turning, Alex could see an old woman standing near by. She looked about ninety, maybe even older (if that were possible), stooped with age, the lines on her face so deep they looked like canyons. Behind her, one of the guards roughly forced Alex to her knees, roughly gripping her shoulders and holding her there while his buddy repeated the process with Kara

“Kneel before Queen Bal Gand!” the guard barked as the old woman shuffled forward

“What do you want?” Alex demanded

“I want your world” the Queen said simply, her voice was whisper-quiet, raspy with age, but still held a frightening amount of seriousness, this woman was a queen, who—if Astra’s memories of Daxam were right—ruled over her people almost as a virtual god, people who said ‘no’ to her didn’t get a chance to regret it

“Good luck with that” Alex spat, the old woman bent down, gripping Alex’s chin in a surprisingly firm, not mention painful, grip before she snapped her fingers on her free hand, signaling to the two other guards

“You _will_ give me custodianship of Earth,” she rasped “or your sister _dies_ ” Alex turned, watching in horror as one of the guards placed a plasma pistol to the back of Kara’s head…

******

Astra kicked and pounded on the cell door, yelling and cursing in every language she knew (which were many). Her goal was to be as annoying as possible in the hopes that the guards would open the cell to shut her up, where by she could then make her escape, rescue Alex and Kara, stop the invasion, and get them off the ship and back to Earth

No pressure

“Astra!” she glanced back, seeing Alura’s ghost behind her

“Not now” she snarled

“You need to get out of here”

“I’m trying!” Astra snarled, she kicked the door for emphasis

“Does that help?” Alura wondered

“Yes!”

“I see. Does that hurt?”

“Yes, ow” she slammed her fist down on the door, there was a thump and the door suddenly slid open, an irate looking guard glowered at her

“Be silent!” he growled, Astra grabbed his collar and yanked him inside the cell, slamming him up against the wall and pressing her forearm to his throat, choking him unconsciousness. Once he slid to the floor in a heap, she quickly took his sidearm and passkey and swiftly ducked out into the corridor…

******

Alex winched as one of the guards grabbed her shoulders and lifted her to her feet, unlocking her cuffs even as his buddy kept the gun at Kara’s head while the Queen approached them holding a pad

“This is a transfer of title, transferring custodianship of Earth to me,” she held out the pad “you will place the seal upon it and declare yourself unfit to retain custodianship of Earth”

“No” Alex stated, she watched as a muscle in the Queen’s jaw twitched

“That world belongs to me,” she rasped “it is my right”

“Was it your right to save your own skin when Krypton exploded?” Alex demanded “I know that you transferred power to the planetary shield over the Palace, sacrificing thousands of your own people in order to save yourself”

“This is not a game,” the Queen rasped “need I remind you that your sister’s life is at stake?”

“You can kill us both, it still won’t make me seal that sheave,” Alex countered “see, because thanks to that neural scan you did, I now have all of Astra’s knowledge floating around in my head, I know that, even if you kill me, you can’t legally touch Earth if I don’t seal that transfer, other planets would protest a violation of interstellar law, they might even declare war on Daxam. Maybe even the Green Lanterns might get involved” the Queen’s scowl deepened.

Alex frowned as she suddenly smelled something sweet, a sharp, cloying, sickly sweet smell. She suddenly flashed back to that cliff face; Astra had asked her if she smelled something sweet because, she filtered through Astra’s knowledge, because a sweet smell without any obvious sign of origin was often indicative of a cloaking felid being used in an atmosphere due to the ionization of the molecules in the atmosphere by the field.

But why would one of the Daxamites being using a cloaking field inside their own ship?

Unless…

Alex felt herself grin just as the air behind the Queen suddenly rippled like water, Astra materializing right behind her, grabbing her from behind in a chokehold while holding a plasma pistol to her head

“Drop your weapons!” she ordered “now! Or your queen will be dead before her body even touches the floor!” the guards jerked and swiftly put down their weapons, Astra pointed at one of them “you! Release them!” she ordered, he grunted and swiftly uncuffed Kara “are you both all right?” Astra asked

“Yeah” Alex panted

“Good,” Astra said as she nodded to the doorway “go, I’ll right behind you,” Alex grabbed Kara’s arm and began to edge out of the room, Astra following them, still dragging her hostage with her. With a grunt, she threw the Queen away and turned and grabbed one of Kara and Alex’s arms each “GO! GO!” she ordered as she pulled them down the corridor

“ ** _KILL THEM!!!_** ” the Queen shrieked out after them

“Come on! Come on!” Astra snapped as the guards chased after them, firing as they went “here,” Astra shoved the two girls into an alcove of sorts and held out what looked like two armbands, slapping one onto each of them “take a deep breath” Alex blinked as she looked down at the armband

“These are emergency transport armbands” she realized

“I know,” Astra said softly “and I’m sorry”

“Astra! NO!” Alex lunged for her, but there was a brilliant flash of light and she and Kara suddenly found themselves at the DEO

“Alex!” J’onn rushed forwards

“Stay back!” she began to frantically work the tiny controls on the armband “come on, work damn it! Work!” she snarled in frustration as the little device refused to cooperate “damn it! I’m not losing her again! Work!!”

“Alex, what is going on?!” she briefly glanced up at Lucy, idly noticing that they were at the DEO facility near her apartment

“Astra’s still alive,” she explained distractedly “she just saved us being killed and now she’s up there about to get herself killed!” she huffed out a breath and tried to _think_ , she had all of Astra’s knowledge floating around in her head, she just needed to use it. She sat up, looking around the room, spotting Winn sitting at one the consoles “Winn!” she jumped up “I need to you find me a radio telescope,” she ordered “try the one at Mount Pride Observatory”

“Alex!” J’onn grabbed her arm and twisted her around “what is going on?” he demanded

“Read my mind” she told him, frowning, J’onn gently placed two fingers at her temple, Alex took a breath as her memories of the past few days/weeks flashed by her minds eye. She blinked when J’onn pulled back and stared at her

“Some of those memories aren’t yours” he pointed out

“No, they’re Astra’s” she explained, J’onn nodded

“Agent Schott!” he called out, Winn jumped and Alex wondered how long she’d been gone if Winn was now working at the DEO “do as she says” J’onn ordered

“O…K” Winn turned and started typing

“What else do you need?” J’onn asked, Alex nodded as plans began to unfurl in her mind as looked down at her clothes, realizing that she was still in the ratty t-shirt, sneakers, and sweatpants she’d been wearing when Vogons had abducted her

“I need some tactical gear,” she said at last “and however much kryptonite you can give me”

******

It took less than five minutes for Alex to change into the DEO-issue tac gear, but it felt longer as she loaded the rifle with as much kryptonite ammunition as they could give her, along with three emergency first aid kits, and about a dozen other weapons like grenades

“OK,” Winn jogged up to her “I hacked into the radio telescope at Mt. Pride. So, now what?” Alex took the tablet PC from him and started typing in commands “what are you doing?” Winn wondered

“I’m sending out a pan-orbital transmission and using it to hack into an alien ship’s computer” she muttered

“You can do that?” Winn asked

“Apparently,” Alex muttered as Kryptonain symbols started scrolling down the screen “all right, now where’s the transporter sub-frame?” she muttered

“Here,” Winn took the pad from her and started typing “I can read Kryptonain” he explained

“Kryptonese,” Alex corrected “and when did you learn how to read it?” Winn shrugged

“I got bored one day,” he muttered “decided to learn a new language, and Spanish sounded boring,” he explained “it comes in handy now that I’m working here”

“Just how much did I miss?” she wondered

“Uh, Kara’s been promoted to reporter, Ms. Grant took a leave of absence and made James the temporary head of CatCo—he and Kara are still dating by the way—oh, Lucy and I are dating now”

“Huh, good for you” she congratulated

"Oh, yeah, uh, Kara's mom's alive" Alex froze

"What?" she asked, Winn nodded "her mother? Alura Zor-El? She's _alive?_ "

"Yeah, her pod crashed down just outside the city about a day after you disappeared, she's been in a coma in the med bay ever since" Winn explained

"You couldn't have told me that _first?!_ " Alex demanded

"Uh…"

"Never mind," she snapped, a lot of things suddenly made sense now, for one thing how Astra's hallucination of Alura could appear to her, what if it wasn't an hallucination? What if it never had been? What if it actually _was_ Alura, her mind somehow reaching out to her sister from a comatose state from somewhere like the Phantom Zone, and picked up by Alex after she got a part of Astra's mind inside her head? “deal with it later," she muttered with a shake of her head, right now she had more important things to do, like save Astra "you got it?” she asked, turning back to Winn

“Yeah,” he dug into his pocket and pulled out the transport armband “here, I took apart the one on Kara and managed to reprogram this one,” he explained as Alex slapped it on “it’ll only hold two sets of coordinates,” he warned “one for here and the other for, you know, up there”

“Got it,” she straightened the armband “can you hack into their surveillance system, see what’s going on in there?”

“Yeah, I think…yeah, got it” he turned the pad to her, which showed an image of an empty corridor

“OK, now,” Alex took the pad from him “I just need to find Astra’s geneprint,” she pulled up the DEO’s DNA file on Kara and then had the Daxamite’s ship’s computer scan for anyone with similar DNA. The result came up almost instantly, showing Astra in a corridor being pinned down by enemy fire “damn it, Astra, you stubborn bitch” she muttered

“Alex,” she looked at J’onn and Kara “you better hurry,” J’onn said “satellite tracking shows the ship is starting to enter the atmosphere,” he explained “it’s headed right for National City”

“Right” she grabbed an extra pistol and loaded the rifle

“Here,” J’onn held out two earbuds, one for her, one for Astra she assumed “we’ll try to see if we can piggyback a comm. signal off the transmission you just sent” he explained, Alex nodded

“Understood”

“OK, give me a second,” Winn said “and, yeah, ready” he gave her a thumbs up, she grinned and couldn’t resist

“Beam me up, Scotty” Winn grinned and tapped in a series of commands before nodding

“Good luck” Kara said, Alex nodded

“I’ll bring her back” she vowed, Kara shook her head

“Bring her _home_ ” she said, Alex nodded and activated the armband…

******

Astra scowled as she checked her ammunition, firing off another shot as she dove for cover as the Daxamites let out a barrage of rifle fire

“Astra! It’s no use!” Alura insisted, standing there even plasma bolts passed through her form “this is a battle you can’t win! Just go! Use the transporter and get out before it’s too late!”

“I won’t let them get a foothold on Earth,” Astra snarled, past the point of caring if the Daxamites thought she was crazy for talking to herself “I swore that I would save this world and that is what I am going to do!”

“You can’t save Earth if you’re dead!” Alura spat out as one solider marched in, Astra fired off a shot, using the last of her ammunition. She quickly grabbed the fallen soldier’s weapon and found that it had been locked to his geneprint, rending it useless for her. Snarling, she dropped the rifle and dove back into another alcove as plasma bolts sizzled in the air, striking the walls with a hiss, she was corned, pinned

No way out…

******

Alex grunted as she elbowed one Daxmaite in the ribs and another in the face, it was getting harder and harder to fend them off by the second, they were obviously being affected by Earth’s sun, pretty soon, one of them would gain full control of their newfound powers, and after that, well it wouldn’t end well.

Alex ducked as a plasma bolt sizzled past her head and then snapped up her rifle and fired, only to watch in horror as the kryptonite bullets harmless bounced one solider. He jerked back reflexively, but started to charge once he realized that the bullets couldn’t harm him. In desperation, Alex drew the pistol at her belt, even though she knew that the ordinary bullets would do nothing, took aim, and fired.

The soldier suddenly dropped to the ground howling in agony, his skin turning a deathly pale, veins standing out in sharp relief under his skin as he suddenly started wheezing and panting for breath before he passed out. He looked like he’d been poisoned, but why would ordinary lead bullets affect him when kryptonite didn’t? Unless it was because Daxamites had developed on a different planet, with slightly different air, different plants, different water, all of those factors could have contributed to them developing a different weakness.

Ducking as another plasma bolt sizzled past her head, Alex quickly reloaded her rifle with standard ammunition, took aim, and fired. Taking out the three Daxamites surrounding her…

******

Astra cringed as more plasma bolts sizzled past her position, this was it, the end she knew, her only regret was not being able to see Alex once more. There was the sudden bang of an explosion and suddenly she could hear gunfire, actual gunfire, not plasma bolts, but a automatic rifle firing. She looked up as Alex suddenly ran down the corridor towards her, firing as she went

“What are you _doing here?!_ ” Astra demanded

“I’m rescuing you! What the fuck does it look like?!” Alex snarled as she ducked into the alcove and reloaded “here,” she thrust a handgun into Astra’s hands “it’s a not plasma pistol, but it works”

“I don’t want your help! I want you **_safe!!_** ” Astra snarled as she fired off several rounds

“Well, tough! I’m here to rescue you and that’s final!!”

“Fuck you!”

“Maybe once we get out of this” Alex grinned

“You’re insufferable, Alex,” Astra groaned although she couldn’t help but smile at Alex’s courage, they both ducked down in the alcove and reloaded as the Daxamites kept firing “we need to find the leader, Daxamite soldiers won’t fight without their leader” she panted out

“Yes, _but_ which one is the leader?” Alura wondered

“General Astra! You are surrounded! Surrender!!” a voice suddenly boomed

“ _That’s_ the leader” both woman realized

“On three,” Alex said “ready?”

“Ready”

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!” they both popped out from inside the alcove and shot the leader who standing in the center of the room. He toppled over like a tree, while his soldiers stood there, unsure of what to do

“Surrender!” Astra ordered, they quickly dropped their weapons “all of you, inside” she quickly ushered them into a nearby room, gathered their weapons, and then sealed the room

“All right, let’s go” Alex said as she pulled out the two armbands, only for Astra to gently grasp her wrist, stopping her

“There’s little point in returning to Earth if the planet is about to be invaded” she pointed out, Alex sighed

“Right,” she muttered as she stuffed the armbands back into her pocket as they started jogging down the corridor, every sense alert “so, what’s the plan here, General?” she asked

“We only have a few minutes before the ship enters the atmosphere,” Astra explained “we need to find the engine room”

“Why?” Alex asked as she handed Astra the earbud who, after starting at it for a few seconds, put it in her ear

“If we can create an overload in the slipstream drive, we can end this invasion before it even begins” she explained, just as there was a sudden crackle of static from the earbuds

“ _Alex!_ " Winn’s voice suddenly called out, the transmission was a little static-y than Alex would have liked, but it was understandable

“Winn! Great to hear your voice!” she cheered, while Astra blinked, then smiled in recognition

" _Likewise,_ ” he replied “ _we’re piggybacking a signal through the hack you made in their systems_ ” he explained

“Mr. Schott, do you still have access to their systems?” Astra asked

“Answer the lady, Winn” Alex prompted

“ _Uh, yes, ma’am_ ”

“Good,” Alex sighed “we need to find the engine room”

“ _Copy that…uh, OK, take the next right and head to the, uh…dropshaft? And take it down five levels_ ” he explained, Alex nodded down the corridor

“This way,” she said, only to jump back as a plasma bolt suddenly sizzled past her nose “Winn! We need another way!” she yelled out as Astra swung her pistol up and fired “Winn?!”

“ _Go left and head for the maintenance duct on your right!!_ ” Winn yelled back

“This way!” Alex grabbed Astra’s arm and dragged her to a spot on the wall “he said a maintenance duct”

“Here! Cover me!” Astra dropped to one knee and began to run her hands up and down the wall, feeling for a seam of some kind, all the while the Daxamites kept firing

“Astra! Hurry!”

“I got it!” Astra quickly yanked a panel off the wall “in! In!” she ordered, all but shoving Alex inside the small crawlspace, sealing the hatch behind them

“Which way, Winn?” Alex cringed at the sound of the plasma fire getting closer

“ _Keep going straight!_ ”Winn instructed, the duct was just big enough for the two of them to crawl one behind the other, and it was slow going

“As much as I’m enjoying the view from back here,” Astra grumbled about half a minute later “could you, by any chance, hurry up?!” she demanded

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Alex spat out “and quit looking at my ass!”

“It’s rather difficult not too, darling,” Astra called back “and besides, it’s quite nice to look at” she added

“ _Uh, you guys_ do _know that we can hear you, right?_ ” Winn suddenly asked, Alex cringed and glanced back over at Astra

“Oops” the Kryptonian deadpanned

“ _We will discuss this later,_ ” J’onn suddenly rumbled over the comm. “ _right now focus on getting out of there,_ ” he snarled “ _the ship’s already entered the atmosphere and the Pentagon is already planning to shoot it down_ ” he explained

“Understood” both women replied

“Winn, how much farther?” Alex asked

“ _Uh, just keep going for another…five feet,_ ” he replied “ _uh, there is a…_ slight _drop_ ”

“Wha—WHOA! SHIT!” the ground suddenly dropped out from under them and both women went tumbling down a large, vertical shaft, finally landing on the hard deck below

“Thank you for the advanced warning, Mr. Schott!” Astra spat out with a groan as she slowly sat up “you OK?” she asked

“I’m just super,” Alex grumbled as she got to her feet “so, now what?” she asked as she looked around the surprisingly small room. The room was about two stories tall, they had emerged from the duct onto the upper level overlooking a tall column of energy in the center of the room, which pulsed rhythmically, almost like a heartbeat. As she tired to get her bearings, Astra rushed to a console or control panel of some type and began to furiously type in commands

“I’m going to try to trigger an overload of the slipstream core,” she explained “watch what you’re shooting at,” she warned “things in here don’t react well to bullets”

“Yeah, like us,” Alex grumbled “how long is this going to take?” she wondered

“I don’t know,” Astra admitted “there are safeguards in place to prevent such—”

“ASTRA!!” Astra looked over as Queen Bal Gand suddenly came flying out of nowhere, knocking the rifle out of Alex’s hands and grabbing her by the throat, easily lifting her off the ground

“STOP!” she bellowed at Astra, who froze, keeping her gun trained on the Queen, but unwilling to shoot, lest she hit Alex “incredible,” Bal Gand rasped as she easily hoisted Alex up and dangled her over the railing “the power, the strength, I can see why you tried to take this world, Astra In-Ze,” she grinned, her lips twisting in a cruel sneer “but I shall succeed where you failed, Earth shall become the capital of a new Daxamite kingdom,” she boasted “we shall stretch out across the stars, bringing order to this chaotic galaxy” 

“Let her go!” Astra snarled, the Queen smirked

“Such a poor choice of words” she rasped as she suddenly dropped Alex

“Alex!!” Astra cried as the Queen suddenly shot towards her in a blur of speed, knocking her aside like a doll

“It is a shame that you will not live to see this glorious vision become reality, General” she rasped as she easily lifted Astra up by her _hair_.

“Astra!” she glanced over at the sound of Alex calling her name, struggling in the queen’s grip as the old woman swung her around and into the wall

“I am going to _savor_ this!” the Queen hissed, before she grabbed Astra’s arm and _twisted_ , Astra screamed as her entire world suddenly collapsed into a bright red sphere of pain as the Queen easily snapped her arm like a twig. She gasped for breath, panting in pain as she struggled to get to her feet, even though she knew that without her powers the queen could kill her with ease, the only reason she wasn’t was that she wanted her to suffer, but she had to try, she had to save Alex, she _had to_

There was a sudden blast of gunfire and Queen Bal Gand jerked in pain before dropping to the ground like a stone. Gasping, Astra looked up to see Alex standing behind the queen holding her rifle

“You OK?” she asked as she rushed over

“My arm,” Astra panted out as she struggled to get to her feet “the controls,” she pointed to the console “set every indicator to six”

“Got it” Alex hurried over and reset the controls, almost as soon as she did alarms began to scream and the towering column began to pulse and hum out of rhythm, a swirling vortex suddenly appearing within it as a sudden burst of static filled her ear as the earbud went dead

“ _Slipstream core overload in progress_ ” a computer announced

“Let’s go!” Alex grabbed Astra’s good arm and roughly hauled her to her feet “come on!” she slapped the transport armband onto her arm

“You!” both women looked over to see the Queen, still alive despite the numerous bullet holes in her body, glower at them “I name you destroyers of worlds!” she rasped “killers! Murders! YOU HAVE KILLED DAXAM!!!” she shrieked

“You should have left us alone” Alex said softly, with that, she touched the armband and the familiar blinding light surrounded her, but something was wrong, she didn’t really know _how_ she could tell, but she could. There was a sudden feeling of being _pulled_ before she rematerialized and suddenly realized that she had rematerialized in _midair_.

Screaming, she tumbled wildly through the night sky, at least a thousand feet above National City, the wind tearing at her body, where was Astra? Did she make it off the ship? Did she even rematerialize? Was she really going to…?

Strong arms suddenly wrapped around her, jerking her to a stop

“I got you!” Astra said “you’re all right, just breathe” gasping, Alex burrowed deeper into Astra’s arms as the Kryptonian glided to a stop, floating high above the city

“The ship?” Alex asked but before Astra could answer there was a distant _boom_ and a bright flair of light. Squinting, Alex could see a massive blue-white shockwave suddenly explode out from a large dark shape high above them, obliterating it as the shockwave rippled through the air, killing every light in National City, before vanishing, leaving the two women floating there among the stars “it’s over” Alex realized breathlessly

“It’s over” Astra confirmed softly


	15. The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's the final chapter of The General Danvers Guide to the Galaxy (YAY!!!) I want to thank everyone who commented and kept up with this oddball idea I had at three AM one night (I seem to have a lot of fanfic ideas at three AM) and I hope that everyone looks forward to the sequel and to updates of Strange Visitor, Family Matters, and Part Six of What we are.
> 
> And now...ONWARDS!!

******

They landed at the DEO about ten minutes later, Astra gently touching down in Command with Alex held securely in her arms

“Stand down!” J’onn barked at the agents surrounding them as Alex gently untangled herself from Astra “are you all right?” J’onn asked as he approached them, Alex nodded

“I’m fine, sir,” she answered “thanks to Astra,” the scowl on J’onn’s face told her that he still wasn’t pleased at the general’s involvement as he turned to her “I’m assuming you understand that we can’t just let you walk out of here?” he asked, she nodded

“I do” J’onn nodded back and then turned to Alex, she nodded, bowing her head

“I know,” she said softly “I’ll escort her to a cell”

“Uh, sir?” a young agent approached, awkwardly holding out a pair of kryptonite cuffs

“We won’t need those,” J’onn told him, waving him off, he glanced at Astra and raised an eyebrow “will we?”

“No,” she told him simply, she turned back to Alex “shall we, dear?” she asked pleasantly, as if they were going out to lunch instead of Alex escorting her to a cell, Alex nodded mutely and took her arm, gently leading her in the direction of the prisoner cells

******

Alex groaned as she rolled her neck and shoulders, trying to work out the knots and kinks as she printed out her report—all twelve pages of it—although after enduring the processing center on Daxam, somehow filing out incident reports suddenly felt easy now. After signing it, she handed it to J’onn, who looked it over and nodded

“All right, that’s the official version,” he said “now I want to hear what really happened”

“That is what really happened” J’onn raised an eyebrow

“Really?” he asked “because I don’t see anything in here about you and Astra sharing a kiss on a golden bridge near a waterfall,” he expression softened “Alex, do you trust her?”

“I do,” she answered “J’onn, I saw into her memories, her _soul_ , I probably know her better than she knows herself” J’onn scowled but finally nodded

“Have you told her that her sister’s alive yet?” he asked, Alex shook her head

“No, not yet” J’onn nodded

“Maybe you should,” he suggested “you can give her the good news too,” he held out a piece of paper “signed by the President herself” he explained as Alex scanned it, hardly believing the words she was reading. Feeling a little giddy (OK, a _lot_ giddy) she all but _skipped_ out of the room and hurried to Astra’s cell

******

Alex slowed down once she reached the outer door to Astra’s cell, she took a breath, trying to steady herself, as she punched in the access code, opening the door. Inside the cell proper, Astra was _lounging_ on her back, arms behind her head, one leg drawn up, the perfect picture definition of ‘casual’, as she quietly sang

“My lover’s got humor, she’s the giggle at a funeral, knows everybody’s disapproval, I should’ve worshiped her sooner. If the Heavens ever did speak, she’s the last true mouthpiece, every Sunday’s getting more bleak, a fresh poison each week. We born sick, you heard them say it,” Alex felt a shiver run through her as Astra turned to look at her as she began the next verse, singing _to her_ “my church offers no absolutes, she says ‘worship in the bedroom’, the only heaven I’ll be sent to, is when I’m alone with you. I was born sick, but I love it, command me to be well, amen, amen, amen”

“Take me to church,” Alex found herself suddenly belting out, grinning like a loon on crack as she did “I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death, good gad, let me give you my life”

“If I’m a pagan of the good times,” Astra sang back as she sat up, looking Alex square in the eye “my lover’s the sunlight, to keep the Goddess on my side, she demands a sacrifice. Drain the whole sea, got something shiny, something meaty for the main course, that’s a fine lookin’ high horse. What you got in the stable? We’re a lot of starving faithful, that looks tasty, that looks plenty, this is hungry work”

“Take me to church,” Alex sang back “I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death, good gad, let me give you my life”

“No masters or kings when the ritual begins,” Astra crooned “there is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin, in the madness and soil of that sad earthy scene. Only then am I human, only then am I clean. Oh, oh, amen, amen, amen”

“Take me to church,” they both belted out, grinning at each other through the cell door “I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death, good god, let me give you my life…” they both looked away, laughing

“Is this going to a thing of ours from now on?” Alex wondered, Astra chuckled

“Possibly,” she answered “but you didn’t come here just to hear me sing a song that criticizes the Catholic Church?” Alex shook her head and opened the cell, coming to join Astra on the simple bunk. She held out the paper that J’onn had given her

“Well, go on,” she encouraged when Astra just took it and stared at it “read it” she watched as Astra opened it and read it’s contents, the shock clear in her face

“I…I’ve been...granted a pardon?” she said, Alex nodded

“Full pardon,” she confirmed “apparently helping to stop an alien invasion gets you a lot of brownie points with the White House” Astra chuckled

“So…what does this mean for… _us_?” she wondered

“Well, firstly, you still have to stay here,” Alex began “you won’t be a prisoner, but you’ll have to, well, live here, at least for a while anyway”

“I’ve had worse accommodations”

“Yeah, I know, remember?” Alex chuckled “and as for ‘us’,” she reached out and cupped Astra’s face “come here” she pulled Astra into a kiss, trying to pour everything she felt for this woman into this one kiss. As they broke away for air, Astra frowned at her

“What is it?” she asked quietly “you’re holding something back, I can tell” Alex bit her lip and stood up, holding out her hand

“There’s something you need to see” she said

******

Alura lay silently on the gurney in the isolation room, she didn’t move, her eyelids didn’t flutter as if dreaming, she was totally and utterly still save for her breathing, if Alex didn’t know any better she’d have sworn that Alura was just asleep, but she _did_ know better. According to the doctors Alura was in a ‘coma-like state’, every once in a while she would suddenly start dreaming, the last time she’d done so matched up perfectly with the time that Alex had seen her on the Daxamite ship, so apparently every time Alura ‘dreamed’ while in this state she had actually somehow been contacting Astra, offering her encouragement and trying to get her to stop her war against humanity

“All this time,” Astra finally murmured “how did she…?”

“Her pod apparently was trapped in the Phantom Zone,” Alex explained “it’s also the source of the beacon that drew the Daxamites here” she watched as Astra shakily reached out, softly curling her fingers around Alura’s hand

“I’m here” she whispered, Alura’s eyelids fluttered, as if she was dreaming, for a brief second, but that was all

“I’ll give you some time alone” Alex said softly, she stopped when she felt Astra gently grab her arm

“Please, stay?” she requested, Alex nodded softly

“OK” she said as she pulled over a chair and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around Astra’s shoulders, pulling her close, and placing her other hand over Astras, curling her own fingers around Alura’s hand, watching as Alura’s eyes fluttered and then slowly opened…

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know kind of cliffhanger-y, but hey, Avatar ended the same way, so...let me know what you thought :=). Lyric content from "Take me to Church" by Hozier


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